


The Woods

by despommes



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Rape, trigger warning, tw, tw: rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 33
Words: 44,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2756099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/despommes/pseuds/despommes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s not that hard to put two and two together, Chief,” Krem mutters, staring into his tankard. “Templars in the Free Marches have a reputation. Inquisitor’s spent her whole life wandering around the forests with her clan or whatever. Say she met a templar once or twice in those woods. Young, pretty Dalish girl with a talent for magic and no experience fighting. Say that one or two of those templars weren’t good men.” He drains the rest of his ale, wipes his mouth with his sleeve. His chair scrapes along the floorboards as he stands. “You can figure the rest out for yourself.”</p><p>WARNING: This work contains graphic depictions of rape. Please do not read if mentions of sexual abuse and assault are triggering for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Part One

**Author's Note:**

> The following work contains graphic depictions of rape and sexual assault, as well as the psychological trauma that follows as a result. Please, PLEASE, do not read if the thought of sexual abuse and violence makes you uncomfortable in any way. It is not to upset anyone with this piece of fiction. Please take this warning into account before proceeding.

When Aria is a very young woman, clan Lavellan camps at the border of Kirkwall and Starkhaven. She is young and bright, eyes wide to the world around her. There is a boy in her clan, Errol, the same age as her. He brings her flowers a few times, and blushes when they speak. It makes her heart race and she can’t help but smile when he looks at her, giddy and sick all at the same time.

One morning Errol brings her a pendant he has made himself, bright silverite and rose quartz in the shape of a songbird. In honor of her coming of age, he says, and the vallaslin she will soon mark her face with. She smiles and holds it to her breast when he leaves her. Deshanna mounts it on a long chain for her, and Aria holds her hair away as the keeper clasps it around her neck.

She wanders the woods one afternoon, barefoot and without her staff. The grass is soft and thick under her toes, and the trees weave a lush canopy above her. Rain is thick on the breeze, but nothing falls. She doesn’t know how close she strays to the edge of the forest until she hears voices, deep and harsh against the song of the branches in the wind. In the clearing beyond, she sees them. Shem templars, gathered around a campfire. Four of them, in their bulky armor with the Chantry’s flaming sword upon each of their breastplates.

Against every frightened bone in her body telling her to turn back, find the clan, get home, she lingers. Hidden behind the thick trunk of a tree, she watches them. Two small boys, one human and one city elf, sit together in the grass. Their hands are bound in steel shackles covered in runes. The elf, the youngest, is sniffling and wiping his eyes, while the human stares despondently at the rumbling clouds above. Two new mages, she thinks, torn from their lives and on their way to a Circle. She feels sick. A wave of thick anxiety washes over her, and it is then she decides it is time to leave. Her heart pounds for the safety of the clan, the watchful and protecting eyes of the hunters.

She turns away from the tree line, upset and on the verge of tears. Her eyes leave the children in the clearing to look for the way back home, but once she is again facing the heart of the forest, her breath turns to glass in her lungs and her legs to stone underneath her.

There were five templars.

He stares at her from yards away. Aria stares back, eyes wide and frightened. A cold sweat breaks out over her forehead, her chest, her back. His gaze does not leave her. She has seen that look before. It is the same look the wolf gives the fawn before it leaps. Eyes still fixated, he takes one slow, calculated step in her direction.

Aria _runs_.

She darts to the right, adrenaline carrying her. He is far enough away to anticipate her move, but if she runs fast enough she’ll be able to evade him, so she sprints faster than she ever has in her life. Over roots and stones and through tall grass. The corner of her eye catches him trying to flank her from the side, but she wills her feet onward, to keep going. She has no other choice. The sound of his clanking armor follows her, creators, how is he so fast in all that steel?

Stray switches on the younger trees whip her face as she runs, leaving tiny welts and cuts on her cheeks and neck. The stinging brings hot tears to her eyes, but Aria barely notices. All she can hear in her mind is the screaming need to run home run to safety run to the keeper. She flies past him, and nearly sobs with the relief of losing sight of him. She’s going to make it, all she has to do now is lose him in the trees and—

A thick, gauntleted hand grabs her long hair from behind and yanks. Aria yelps as her head snaps back, neck following in a painful click. Her feet flail as she falls to the ground and lands hard on the base of her spine.

She is given no time to find her bearings. The fist full of her hair pulls up, dragging her head with it. She cries out weakly at the pain, fresh tears welling up against her lashes. Her feet try to find the ground but they scrabble for purchase and she is left dangling from the roots of her yellow hair only.

“Dalish whelp.”

The templar brings her face to his. Studies her. Her hands try to claw at his wrist, but her nails only scrape against the cold steel of the gauntlet. She studies him back. He is young, and ragged looking. There are dark shadows under his bloodshot eyes. His hair is stringy and strands fall into his face. A day or two’s worth of beard covers the skin from his cheeks to his neck. He might have been handsome, Aria thinks, if it weren’t for the cruel, haggard look to him.

She remembers her magic in that moment. Desperation floods her nerves and she reaches out to the Beyond, calls to it. She can’t picture what she’s looking for, fire, lightning, ice, anything to help, but as soon as the magic is found the templar’s eyes harden and a smirk slowly finds its way to his mouth. In an instant, her magic is gone, the Beyond is gone. She nearly sobs at the loss of it. It’s not right, it’s unnatural. She can’t think, and for a second she fears she might stop breathing.

“I don’t think so, girl,” he laughs. “There’ll be none of that. ‘Course you’d be a little mageling.”

Aria does sob at that. She is not strong. She’s passable with a bow, like all Dalish children learn to be, but she never learned daggers or swords, and without her magic she’s powerless.

“How old are you, girl?” he barks at her, and she flinches. His breath is sour. It smells of the fiery drink Rumiel sometimes buys from the shem markets. He’d let her have a sip once, and it had burned her throat so badly she’d choked.

“F-fourteen,” she stammers. Her tears fall on her lips, into her mouth.

“Fourteen.” He chuckles. “Don’t even have your ink yet, do you? No. Not yet. What’s your name?”

She swallows against the hard, painful lump in her throat. “Aria.” Her voice is croaky, thin.

“Aria.” A hateful grin finds his face. He murmurs her name again, as if he’s tasting the word in his mouth.

“P-please, ser,” she sobs, staring into his eyes, searching for any shred of compassion that might have been there, “please, y-you’re hurting me—“

His fist tightens against her scalp, and she gasps. “I’m hurting you, am I?” His upper lip curls into an ugly snarl. “Believe me, girl. Once I’m done with you, you’ll know what it means to really hurt.”


	2. Prologue: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following work contains graphic depictions of rape and sexual assault, as well as the psychological trauma that follows as a result. Please, PLEASE, do not read if the thought of sexual abuse and violence makes you uncomfortable in any way. It is not my goal to upset anyone with this piece of fiction. Please take this warning into account before proceeding.
> 
> Thank you all for your feedback!

He drags her deeper into the woods, away from the edge of the forest. Aria realizes that they are heading farther and farther from her clan’s camp. Her feet struggle to keep up as he pulls her along behind him by the roots of her scalp. She can’t tell how long they walk, but eventually they do stop. The templar _finally_ lets go of her hair, and Aria falls to her knees with the relief of it. By now her face is stained and salty with tears and her feet are filthy from being dragged through the dirt.

She’s yanked around by her elbow to face him. He eyes her face for a few moments, then her throat, and downwards. She goes pale with dread when she realizes the path his gaze follows.

“Pretty,” he says. His hand grabs her chin, forcing her head up. He examines her throat again.

“Ser, you’re scaring me.” Her words are soft, almost whispered, and trembling. He laughs at her.

The songbird pendant hanging around her neck catches his eye. He reaches out and grabs it, yanking it so that the delicate chain snaps. “Would you look at that?” Aria’s lip trembles. He holds it up to the light for a moment. “Did your mumma give this to you? Granny maybe? No. Girl as pretty as you, must have been a beau, I’ll bet. Some little Dalish runt with barely any fuzz on his balls.”

For a moment, she thinks of Errol, of the bashful smile on his face and the flush around his neck as he gave it to her. Aria wishes he would find her, save her. Like a hero from the tales Hahren Gilethal tells in front of the fire, come to rescue his princess. She starts to weep. He pockets the trinket and stands.

“Tell me, Aria,” he says, almost amusedly. “Pretty, pretty Aria.” With his own mocking tone, he makes himself laugh. Her watery eyes follow his hands as they go to unlatch the gauntlets, then remove them one after the other.

“Have you ever been fucked before?”

She starts to shake. One of her hands reaches up to clamp around her mouth, tears falling from her wide eyes and catching between her fingers. _This isn’t real, this is not happening, this is a nightmare and soon she’ll wake up and cry for a little while, and the keeper will tell her everything is okay, it was just a dream—_

“I said!” A hand clamps around her leg and jerks, yanking her out of her sitting position so her head hits the dirt floor of the forest with an audible _thwack_. “Have you ever been _fucked_ before, Aria?”

Her hands move to cover her eyes, and she frantically shakes her head no.

The sound of steel armor and leather belts being undone fills the still forest air, where oddly enough, the birdsong has vanished. Her hands are pulled away from her eyes and she panics, tries to scramble away, but he’s so much stronger than her, he pulls her back.

“No! No, no stop!” she cries, and he slaps her so hard her head flies to the side. She sees stars, tastes the heavy tang of blood.

“If you yell like that again, I will cut the tongue right out of that pretty little mouth of yours.”

She’s too scared to say anything else.

“Little Aria.”

His hands are on her, she feels clammy fingers at the hem of her linen blouse, and with a loud rip it lies in shreds around her shoulders. Next is her skirt, her favorite skirt, the burgundy one with gold leaf embroidery that the keeper’s youngest daughter made for her last nameday. Another rip, and she’s bare in the chill of the coming rain. Her knees come up and she crosses her arms over her chest to cover herself, but he wrenches them away, pinning her wrists over her head and forcing her legs apart to make room for his torso between them. She realizes he’s also removed his own clothing, and the feeling of him naked against her skin makes bile rise in her throat.

“Trust me, little Aria.” He leans in and licks a line down the middle of her sternum, between her small breasts. “No Dalish whelp is ever going to fuck you like I’m going to fuck you.”

She squirms, trying to wiggle free, but his free hand grabs her jaw.

“If you bite me, I’ll break your neck.”

Aria’s mouth slackens a little in confusion, and then he seals his lips over hers, forcing his tongue between them. She gasps and tries to wrench her head back into the dirt, but his fingers have a death grip on her chin and she can’t go anywhere. He licks into her mouth, over her teeth, his tongue slimy and sour tasting, and for a second she is sure she’s going to be sick. He pulls back after what seems like an eternity, and she gasps for air. His mouth moves down over her throat as it heaves with her desperate breaths, licking, sucking, biting, covering the skin with saliva and leaving angry red marks behind.

“Sweet,” he murmurs against the hollow of her throat, “Like fucking honey and clotted cream.” Sitting up for a moment, he pins her with his chest and reaches out for a belt. So quickly she doesn’t even have time to struggle, he catches her hands and ties them taut around a young tree. “I’ll bet your cunt tastes even sweeter.”

He bites and sucks at her breasts and she starts to cry at the way it feels. She tries her best to dislodge him from between her thighs and cross her legs, but he’s so much bigger than her. Her struggles are so weak he doesn’t even stop what he’s doing to hit her. The stubble of his beard is starting to leave her skin raw, turning it red as his head moves farther down her torso.

He leans up for a moment so that he is finally _off_ of her, and for a desperate second Aria thinks he’s going to stop, but then his hands push at her thighs, forcing them apart and leaving her bare and open in front of him. She squirms again, tries to scoot on her bottom to get away, but he lifts her up and pulls her back again, heavy-lidded gaze never moving from between her legs.

“Prettiest, sweetest pink little cunt I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he says to himself, breathing heavy. One of his hands moves from her thigh and he pushes his fingers into her. It burns and hurts so badly that she forgets she’s supposed to be keeping quiet and lets out a painful sob. Her eyes squeeze shut again, trying to block out the look on his face, but the feeling is still there. The fingers pull out and then push in again, over and over until she’s sure she’s going to start bleeding or die.

“Please,” she whimpers, “please stop.”

He doesn’t. He keeps going for a few moments longer, and then there is a brief pause as he lowers his head and _licks_ her. Aria lets out a quiet, strangled cry. Her feet try to find purchase on his shoulders to push him away, but his other hand clamps down on her hip hard enough to bruise.

“Feels good, doesn’t it, girl?” he laughs into her skin, and she shakes her head wildly, arms pulling against the belt.

“Please,” she sobs. “ Please, please, please—“

It does feel good. She doesn’t know why, she’s scared and in pain and she’s sure he’ll kill her soon. It feels good and it makes her ill, makes her stomach turn and her head feel dizzy. She wants to die, wills her heart to cease beating and stop the humiliation, stop the pain, but nothing of the sort happens. The man keeps licking at her, moving his fingers in and out at the same time. Her ears are burning. Eventually, the pain begins to dull, and another feeling takes over. She doesn’t know what it is, has never felt anything like it, and it makes her uncomfortable. Her belly starts to feel warm, and her legs are shaking.

“Getting a little wet, poppet?” he growls. “Oh, look at you, you little tart. You sure are. You _love_ it.”

“No,” she sobs, shaking her head. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block it out. He keeps going, this time faster. His other hand reaches up to grab at her breast, kneading against her chest, flicking and pinching her nipple. It hurts. Her breathing comes faster, her heart pounds in her chest. The feeling in her belly gets stronger, bigger, she doesn’t know what’s happening. It coils somewhere among her insides, tightening.

“Are you going to come, Aria? Going to come for me, lovely?” She buries her face into her arm, trying to block out his voice. She doesn’t know what he means. “Maker, I bet you’ve never fucking come before. Never even touched yourself. Just look at you. All fucking pink and trembling.”

Her nose is dripping, watery snot mingling with the tears and the dirt on her face. The heat in her stomach is starting to spread, up her back, up her chest, to her breasts and neck. The man’s mouth is relentless, she thinks she’s going to explode. _This isn’t happening,_ she thinks. _This hurts, this hurts so much, it can’t be real._

Suddenly, the feeling in her belly swells. Her spine starts to crumple in on itself, her back bowing under the tension, and something inside her breaks. She cries out, shudders jerking every muscle in her body. Everything is happening so quickly, and it feels _good_ , but she doesn't know why. He's hurting her! She's terrified, and he's hurting her, and she feels sick to her stomach with hot, red shame. How can this feel good? She wants to die then, wants to disappear into thin air and join her mother and father in the Beyond.

“Andraste’s flaming _tits_!” He gasps as he feels it, shoving his fingers so deep she chokes back a scream. Her insides grip around him and he groans, his eyes rolling back behind his lids a little. She starts to weep, confused and ashamed.

When it stops, he pulls back, taking his hand away. Her muscles are trembling and she’s covered in sweat. He slaps her between her legs, and she jumps. Aria curls up on her side, naked in the dirt, and sobs. He leaves her be for a second, breathing heavily and loudly. She feels his eyes on her.

After a few moments, he rolls her over on her back again. She sees his hand disappear between his legs, can’t see what he’s doing from where she’s lying.

“Never felt anything so tight in my fucking life,” he hisses. “I’m going to fuck you bloody. You hear me, Aria? I’m going to fuck you _blind_.”

She looks away from him. When he grabs her jaw to turn her head, she wrenches free and pulls her face away. He hits her again, hard, and forces her to face him. His forehead is touching hers, breath all over her, tongue brushing her mouth as he licks his lips.

“Look. At me.”

She looks.

He looks mad, she thinks, eyes hazy and breath coming in hot pants. She’s sure, in that moment, that after this he will kill her. He’ll use her, break everything inside of her, and then he’ll kill her here in the forest, miles away from her clan’s camp.

He kisses her again. His hand closes around the back of her skull and his tongue is back in her mouth. She thinks he’s trying to force his way down her throat, and the thought makes her choke.

His other hand is still between his legs. He moves closer, prying her knees apart until he’s flush against her. She feels his knuckles brush against where his mouth had been earlier, his hand moving back and forth, and then there’s something else there, something hot and firm, and—

She pulls back and sucks in a gasp. “No, no, don—!“

He pulls her head back and bites down on her lip so hard it bleeds, and she whimpers. He laps at the blood, growls deep in his throat.

She squirms. Her hips shy away, one last struggle. “Please, I’m begging you!” she whispers against his mouth. “Please don’t do this, I beg you, please!”

“Keep begging, sweetheart.” He grins, covers her mouth with his hand, and rocks forward.

She screams against his palm. It _hurts_. More than anything she’s ever felt before, more than the fingers, more than being dragged through the woods, more than that time she broke her ankle at the river all those years ago. Her eyes go wide, brows knitted together in pain, and she squirms, she can’t help it. She thinks she’s being torn in two.

“Maker’s arse,” he breathes into her ear. He pulls back momentarily, and she sobs with relief, but then he pushes back in. Aria thinks she may black out. “Never, in my life, had anything like this, anything like you, little Aria.”

She feels something start to trickle down her thighs. She risks a glance down at where the man’s hips are meeting hers and sees bright red blood on her skin.

“Not even halfway yet,” he groans.

“I-it’s not… It won’t fit,” she sobs. He starts to laugh.

“Don’t you worry about what doesn’t fit, love.” He pulls back again, and this time he pushes harder. He’s tearing her open on the inside, she realizes. That’s where the blood is coming from. If she’s lucky, she’ll bleed to death before it’s over.

At some point, he forces three of his fingers into her mouth and tells her to suck. She can barely breathe around them, her tongue forced to the back of her throat, but she tries. The rocking is slow at first, with a few seconds between each agonizing push, but after a while he stops, takes a single deep breath, and surges forward, hard. Aria screams again.

“Yes,” he hisses, and she realizes that he’s all the way inside her, his hips flush against hers. It takes every bit of willpower she has not to bite down on the fingers between her teeth. He lowers his head and starts to mouth at her breasts again, and now, every time his hips move, she has no choice but to move with him.

He pulls his fingers off of her tongue, resting his hand above where’s he’s forced himself inside her. He strokes her there, and her belly starts to grow warm again.

“Wonder if you’ll come for me one more time,” he says, between pants. “Would you like that, Aria? Want to come again, skewered around my cock like this? You love it, don’t you? Every second, me fucking you like this.” With each word, his hips move faster, his fingers between her legs stroking harder. Nothing about it feels remotely good anymore.

Eventually, the tears stop. Aria can feel herself drifting away, into the recesses of her magic-starved mind. Everything goes hazy, and she thinks she’s fainted for a moment. When she opens her eyes, she sees herself. Trapped, pinned underneath the templar as he rapes her. She sees her eyes, glassy and bloodshot from crying. Her mouth hangs open in a silent, never ending sob. It’s surreal. She’s floating. She doesn’t feel anything anymore. No pain, no shame, nothing. She thinks maybe she’s died.

Suddenly, she snaps back to herself. The heat in her belly is back, almost to bursting, and the man’s mouth and hand are back again. She can’t think, can’t feel anything but the wave of heat that washes over her, her back arching again, and a thin, quiet whine reverberating in her throat. This time does not feel good. She’s too cramped inside, all the tremors bring is pain as her body clamps around the man, forcing tears to her eyes.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he groans against her breast. He continues to rub between her legs, bringing more tremors, and she thinks it’s never going to stop. His rocking grows frenzied, faster, raking against her clutching insides. “Did you just—oh, _shit_.”

He leans back to sit on his heels. A hand clamps around her throat. She panics, thinks she’s going to suffocate, as he holds her in place. He bites his lip and pulls her hips into his lap, pushing into her faster and harder than before, and then suddenly, with a long groan, shudders against her. Something hot hits her inside. She squeezes her eyes shut against the sticky feeling, willing herself not to gag, not to throw up. She doesn’t know what he’s done to her, but it feels wrong, it feels sick.

He stays there, gasping, for what seems like hours.

When he does start to pull away, he hisses as he slips free of her. Aria can feel something warm trickling down the inside of her thigh, too sticky and thick to be blood, although there is plenty of that too. She looks down and sees it, white on her skin, like curdled milk. She turns on to her side and dry heaves.

The templar stands up. Aria feels his eyes staring down at her where she lies, naked and covered in filth as she gags into the dirt. He turns around, clears his throat, and spits before going to see to his armor.

Everything hurts. She can’t move for the pain, can’t look at herself. She knows the bruises are there, she’s seen the blood and _that_ on her thighs. For a moment she thinks she could fall asleep here, tied to this tree on the ground, wrists chafed and bloody and her arms pulled nearly out of socket. If she was lucky she would never wake up again.

The templar whistles a disgustingly cheery tune as he puts on his clothing and armor. Once he is finished, he turns around to face her, licks his lips. She can’t bring herself to look him in the eyes. He chuckles.

“Farewell, sweet Aria.” He blows her a kiss. “Thanks for the tumble.”

And with that, he turns and walks away from her. It starts to rain.

She lies there for a long time. She’s terrified he’ll come back, rape her all over again. Change his mind and kill her. An hour passes, maybe more, before she dares to move. She reaches out to the Beyond, and this time it answers her call. The leather belt around her wrists bursts into flames, and she cries out as her arms fall to her sides. Her shoulders ache and her joints are stiff. She rubs at her chafed, bloody wrists, trying to warm the flesh there into feeling again.

Her shredded clothes lie all around her, tatters. Slowly, Aria rises to stand, whimpering with each move she makes. Every part of her body screams in agony. More blood, amongst other things, slides from between her legs and drips all the way to her toes. It is not raining heavily enough to wash any of it away.

She does her best to wrap her ruined clothing around her in a sad attempt to cover her body. The skirt could be tied around her waist, but the blouse was more or less unsalvageable. It was ripped all the way down the middle and the collar was torn completely open. Aria opts for holding it closed like a jacket.

She starts to limp back to the camp.


	3. Prologue: Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following work contains graphic depictions of rape and sexual assault, as well as the psychological trauma that follows as a result. Please, PLEASE, do not read if the thought of sexual abuse and violence makes you uncomfortable in any way. It is not to upset anyone with this piece of fiction. Please take this warning into account before proceeding.
> 
> Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments, I would love to hear what you guys think.

She must have blacked out, fainted somewhere in the woods, because when she comes to it is getting dark, and all she can see is green, green grass. Something permeates the fog in her head, insistent and reaching. A sound? Yes, repeating over and over. It is far off, distant, and she fights the haze to listen for it. A name. Aria. Her name.

“Aria!”

She tries to stand up, gasps at the pain, the ache between her legs and inside her belly, stumbles back down.

“Aria! Where are you?”

She listens again. More voices, more shouts of her name far off in other parts of the woods. People looking for her.

“Aria!”

“Here!” she croaks, tries to stand again. She can’t. The voice keeps repeating, calling to her. She sits up, cups her hands around her mouth. “Help!” she cries. “Somebody! Please, help!”

“Aria?!”

Someone is running to her. She weeps, exhausted, doesn’t know whether to be relieved or worried anymore. She can see whoever it is, bursting through the tall grass, searching. It’s Alonzo, one of the hunters. Errol’s brother.

“Help me!” she sobs.

His head snaps in her direction, eyes finally finding her. She crumples to the ground. “Aria!” He rushes over. “What’s happened to you, lethallan? What’s wrong?”

She can’t tell him, all she can do is cry into her hands. Each sob leaves her breathless with pain. Alonzo’s eyes take in the rips in her clothing, her chafed wrists, the bite on her lip. The blood on her thighs.

“Creators,” he breathes. “All right. Let’s get you out of here.”

“I can’t…“ she sobs, unable to breathe properly. “I can’t stand, I can’t walk—“

“Hush, da’len, it’s all right. Come here. Can you sit up for a moment?”

She tries. He has to hold her up, one hand on her back, before hooking one arm under her knees and scooping her up against his chest. She yelps at the pain of being jostled, and Alonzo whispers soothing words into her hair. They begin the trek back to camp.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs through tears.

“No, Aria,” he says, voice wavering. “ _I’m_ sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

She faints.

The next time she wakes, Alonzo is gently trying to lay her on her cot inside the keeper’s aravel. She lets him think she’s still asleep when he places a kiss to the top of her tangled hair, pretends she doesn’t feel the tear that falls on her forehead.

Deshanna bursts in with her oldest daughter, Irithina. She tells Alonzo to wait outside, says she’ll speak to him in a moment. Irithina pulls a stool to her bedside, gently brushes Aria’s hair away from her face. She calls her mother over.

The keeper’s worn face replaces her daughter’s, grim lines set in the corners of her mouth and the creases in her forehead. “Aria,” she says softly, making sure she’s awake. “I’ve called for the healer. She’ll be here soon, and we’ll get to work on cleaning and stitching you up.” Aria nods. She feels tired, weak. Sick. “Aria, what happened, da’len? Can you tell me? Who did this to you?”

She tries to sit up, but Irithina’s hand gently pushes her back down on to her pillow. She swallows, realizing how dry her throat is. “It was… a templar.”

Deshanna’s jaw clenches. Aria sees her nostrils flare, but when the keeper speaks again, her voice is gentle. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was walking in the woods. Trying to stay close to the camp. I didn’t realize how close to the tree line we were. There was a templar camp. One of them—“ The words are getting harder. She feels a sob threatening to bubble up from her throat.

“How many of them saw you?” Aria brings a hand to her mouth, trying to control how fast her breaths were coming. The keeper’s eyes close. “Aria, I know this is hard.” Her voice is breaking. “But I need you to tell me exactly what happened so that we can figure out what we should do next.”

“Just the one.”

Deshanna takes her hand, rubs circles into her knuckles. “Thank you.”

She licks her lips, tasting blood from where he—the templar, her _rapist_ —had bitten her. “One of them crept up behind me. I tried to run, but he… He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me into the woods, away from the camp. He used a belt, tied me to a tree and… and…”

“Surely that’s enough, mother,” Irithina cries. Deshanna looks at her daughter sternly.

“We need to do this now, while it is still fresh in her mind. If you don’t have the stomach for it, girl, then leave us.” Irithina glares at her mother, but says nothing. The two women turn back to face Aria. “As much detail as you’re able, Aria. Please. Tell me now so we don’t have to do this ever again.”

“He… He threw me on the ground. Kept telling me I was pretty. He took the pendant Errol gave me,” she reached up to her throat, remembering that it was gone. “He asked me if… if I’d ever been fucked.” She doesn’t know what that word means. Her mouth floods with saliva, her stomach roiling. “I need, I need a bucket, please, something.”

Irithina rises to find an empty well bucket. Deshanna nods. “Go on.”

“I screamed, and he slapped me. Said he’d cut my tongue out if I was too loud. He ripped my clothes. Tore them off.” The bucket is placed next to the cot, and Aria does her best to lean over. “He kissed—“

The rest of her words are lost as she heaves over the side of the cot, liquid traces of her lunch from hours ago filling the bucket. Tears stream down her dirty face, mixing with the snot and dirt. The keeper gives her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth.

“He kissed me. Then started licking my throat and biting me, told me I tasted sweet.” She spat into the bucket. “He… put his fingers inside me. It hurt, I told him to stop. Then he started _licking_ me there, and I… I…” Aria digs her fingers into her eyes, trying to erase the memory of his head lowered between her legs, the warm, sick feeling in her belly. “I don’t know what happened. Everything felt really hot. I thought I was going to be sick. He kept telling me I liked it, asked me if I was going to come, if I’d ever come before, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I don’t know what that means.”

“Don’t worry about it, da’len.” The keeper shakes her head. “Go on.”

“He kissed me again, and got on top of me. Then… he… it hurt so, so badly, I wanted to die, I just wanted it to stop.” Aria vomits again, this time bringing up nothing but bile. “I begged him to stop, keeper, I begged and I cried, I pleaded with him to stop, but he _wouldn’t_. There was blood everywhere, I thought I was going to bleed to death.”

“How long did he do this to you?”

“I don’t know. An hour, maybe. A little longer.” Aria wipes her nose. “He knows my name.”

“Irithina. Please go and fetch some water for Aria. She’s been gone since late this morning, she must be thirsty.”

Irithina nods and leaves them, the flap of the aravel swishing shut behind her.

“Keeper,” Aria whimpers. “Keeper, he left something _inside_ me. I don’t know what it was. Am I going to get sick? Did he poison me?”

Deshanna places her hand over her mouth. For a moment, Aria thinks she is going to be sick too, but then she notices the keeper’s shoulders quaking, her chin quivering in the firelight. Tears fall from her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Aria weeps. “I should never have wandered, it’s my fault—“

“Do _not_ apologize, da’len,” Deshanna hisses. She takes Aria’s hand, holds it in a death grip. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. None of the blame is yours. The fault and the shame lie on that man. That _monster_.” She balls Aria’s hand into a loose fist, holds it to her lips as she weeps. “I should have told you before. Of the nature of things, the nature of men. I failed you, my first. I’m sorry.”

Aria lies back on her pillow. For the first time in hours, she realizes how truly and utterly exhausted she is. Even so, she feels disgusting. She is still covered in all kinds of grime: dirt, sweat, saliva. Blood. She can still feel him inside her, past the pain. It makes her gag, and she grips the keeper’s hand.

“I want a bath,” she murmurs.

“Just a moment, da’len, the healer will be here shortly. I’ll have some water heated for you—“

“No, I want a bath now,” she says, trying to stand up. “I don’t want to wait for warm water, and I don’t want to wait for the healer, I want to—“ She starts to wretch again. “I can still _smell_ him on me, keeper. I still feel it inside, I have to get clean.”

“Aria, you cannot take a cold bath, you’ll make yourself ill.”

“I’m already ill,” she sobs. She’s starting to panic. Her limbs begin to shake, the room is spinning. “Please, keeper, I have to be clean.”

“All right, lie back down. I’ll get water.” Deshanna crosses the room and opens up the aravel, telling someone outside to bring a washtub full of water. Aria heaves into her bucket again, sobbing between each gagging fit.

“Aria, you have to calm down. Please, lie back.”

“I can’t! He’s all over me! _Inside_ me, Dread Wolf take me, I can’t bear it—”

“If you continue to make yourself hysterical, it will only make things worse.” There is a soft call at the tent flap. Deshanna rises to answer, and the healer enters with a washtub filled with cold water. The keeper waves her hand, and in an instant the water flash boils until it is steaming hot. “She insists on bathing first,” she tells the healer, Maela. “Perhaps just tend to the superficial hurts for now.”

Maela helps Aria out of her cot and, slowly, into the water. The keeper calls her daughter in and turns to leave.

“Listen to me,” she says to Irithina. “No man enters this tent unless I am with him. Do you understand? If a man opens this tent, I want the first thing he sees to be your arrow trained between his eyes.”

“Where are you going?” her daughter asks.

The keeper sighs. “I must wake Silath. We’re going to need him.”

Aria wants to slip her head underneath the water until she drifts away. Maela cleans her face, washes her cuts and bitten lip with stinging medicine. She coats Aria’s chafed wrists in a thick, green paste, and then wraps them in soft bandages. “It’s all right if they get wet,” she tells her, “the water will help the salve draw the heat from your wounds.”

“Let’s wash your hair, lethallan,” Irithina murmurs, and kneels down beside the tub. Aria reaches up a stiff arm to touch the tangled disaster that is her hair, feels the clods of dirt caught in it. Irithina cups water in her hands and brings it to spill over her head, then finds Aria’s soaps and oils to begin sorting out the knots.

The bathwater is pink with her blood, and cloudy with something else. Aria closes her eyes and shakes. She is clean now, but she can still feel him. His breath on her skin, his body on hers, his tongue in her mouth. Irithina’s hands in her hair are gentle, almost soothing. When she’s done, she braids it into a long, golden plait. “There,” she says, giving Aria a kind smile. “Lovely.”

“Aria,” Maela says, kneeling in front of her. “I need to examine you. We need to make sure you get stitched up and that everything is going to be all right.”

“What?” she whimpers, arms wrapping around her torso.

“I’ll need to look between your legs and see how badly you’ve been hurt.” Maela sighs apologetically. “I know you’re scared, but this is important. If I don’t do this, you could get very sick.”

“No,” Aria says, shaking her head. “No, I don’t want to.”

“Please, Aria.” Irithina’s fingers brush over her knuckles. Aria grabs her hand and squeezes it like a lifeline.

“Will it hurt?” she asks quietly.

“I’m afraid so, da’len.” Maela stands. “We can wait until the keeper returns if you’d like.”

“No. I… I want to get it over with.”

It does hurt. Maela bids her to lie back on the cot with her feet flat and knees spread apart. Irithinia holds her hand. Maela takes clear washing medicine and flushes it over her wounds. It burns. Aria weeps the whole time. After she is clean, Maela begins to stitch her up on the inside. She can feel where she was ripped open, raw and bleeding. She can see the blood on Maela’s hands as she works her needle. It feels like this part lasts for hours. Once the stitches are set and finished, Maela uses a cooling balm to ease the pain, and Aria closes her eyes in exhaustion. She doesn’t understand how she is able to still shed tears, but she does.

Aria is resting, drifting between sleeping and waking when Deshanna returns. With her is Silath, the healer that helps the clan’s women have their babies. He glances sadly at Aria’s exhausted face.

Maela finishes cleaning up and leaves sleeping draughts and numbing balms for Aria. She bids them goodnight, touching her hand to the keeper’s shoulder. Irithina lingers at Aria’s side.

“Aria,” Silath whispers, touching her hand. “You need to wake up. There’s just one more thing left to do before you sleep tonight.”

“I’m so tired,” she whimpers.

“I know, da’len. You’ve been very brave.” His voice is gentle and calm, his hands soft against her face. “I need you to be brave for just a little while longer.”

Irithina helps Aria sit up and lets her lean against her for the time being. Her lips touch the crown of her head.

“What now?” she asks, fearfully glancing at the keeper.

“We need to cleanse your womb,” Silath tells her. He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a dusty felt box. “There is a possibility the man who attacked you could leave you with child. He could have been sick. Whatever he left inside of you needs to be purged.”

For a moment, Aria looks like she’s going to be sick again. Her face screws up, and more tears fall. “I’m so tired,” she says again.

“I know you’re tired.” Silath covers her hand with his own. “Trust me, Aria. This needs to be done as soon as possible. The sooner we do this, the more effective it will be.”

“His seed does not deserve your womb, da’len.”

Aria’s watery eyes find the keeper’s haggard face. She lets out a shaky breath. “All right.”

Silath nods. He opens his box and pulls out a small pouch. “These herbs will have to be brewed into tea. We will need lots of rags.”

“Will this hurt?” Aria asks him.

“Yes, my girl. It will hurt very much.”

The tea tastes odd, like bitter roots and onions, but Aria drinks it. She has to drink one cup every fifteen minutes until it starts to work.

“How will I know when it’s working?”

“You will know,” Silath tells her, and brews more.

When it finally starts, she drops her teacup to the floor and shrieks.

The cramps start out short, lasting only a split second, and come every ten minutes or so. As time passes, they grow longer, closer together, and more intense. Aria lies on her side, curled up in her blankets with tears streaming from her eyes. She’s sure her wails are waking the whole camp, and that makes her cry harder, leaving her short of breath.

“You must breathe, Aria,” Silath says, his hand rubbing circles into the small of her back.

“I can’t,” she sobs.

“Long, deep breaths. It’ll help the pain, I promise you.”

She tries, she really does.

“You’ll start bleeding soon. This is not your injuries reopening, it is whatever was inside your womb. The blood you shed during your regular moon will come now.”

Aria thinks she’s never seen more blood in her entire life than she has seen on this day. Her thighs are once again slick with it, and more comes with every spasm of her insides. The three of them rotate between sitting at her side, cleaning the rags, and holding her hand.

When it is finally over, it is well into the early hours of morning. Aria is all but delirious with exhaustion. Silath strokes her sweat drenched hair behind her ear, tells her he’ll be back soon to check on her. When he leaves she’s fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep, assisted by the draughts Maela left at her bedside. Deshanna has the hunters double the watch around the camp perimeters, and Irithina is beginning to nod off.

“Go home,” her mother tells her.

“I can’t. I want to be here for her when she wakes up.”

“I’ll make a pallet for you on the ground, then.”

“Mother.” Deshanna looks at her. “You cannot let this go undealt with.”

“I will try, Irithina.” She nods. “At first light, messages will be sent to both Kirkwall and Starkhaven’s circles. I don’t think anything will be done about it, but it’s all we can do.”

“That is not good enough.”

“What would you have me do, daughter? March into both Circles, declare myself an apostate to them? Tell them one of their templars broke one of their most sacred vows, raped and brutalized my apprentice, _my first_! Demand they behead him?”

“If he raped an elven girl he found in the forest, who is to say he is not doing the same to mages in the Circle he serves?”

“Do you think they care what templars do to the mages in their circles?” She held her hands up in exasperation. “They do not give any thought to the safety of their own, much less a little Dalish girl in the middle of the woods. Nothing will be done, Irithina.”

“Somebody has to care!”

“Perhaps someone does. We are in no position to ask for their aid. Believe me, da’len, I am just as frustrated and furious as you are. But I promise you, _nothing will come of this_.”

Deshanna’s eyes fall on Aria where she lies. Her face is expressionless in sleep, the light from the candle flickering over the darkening bruises, one high on her cheekbone, the other spreading over the side of chin. The keeper sighs tiredly. She sits on her own cot.

“My first.” She drops her face into her hands. “Elgar’nan, if her mother were alive to see this. She would never forgive me.” Irithina watches her mother’s head shake back and forth between her fingers.

“He knows her name.”

“Yes,” Deshanna says. “I’ve doubled the watch, and there will be hunters outside the aravel tonight. We’ll have to prepare to move again tomorrow morning. We cannot stay here. He might come back for her, lead more people here. She won’t be safe.”

Irithina pulls blankets out of a chest near her mother’s cot. Deshanna stands to help her make a pallet on the floor next to Aria. By the time the two women lie down to finally sleep, the sky is beginning to grey in preparation for the upcoming dawn.

“How could anyone do this, mother?” Irirthina whispers.

“I don’t know, my love,” Deshanna replies. “I don’t know, and I never, ever want to understand.”

The next day, Aria wakes up before the keeper or Irithina. Her muscles and joints are stiff and ache with an intensity she’s never imagined before. Silently, she takes a hunting knife and her hand mirror, and in the stillness of the early morning air, she cuts off all of her long, silvery blonde hair.


	4. A Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks you all so much for your feedback. Now that the prologue is out of the way, chapters will be much shorter, but no less important. Please tell me what you think!

The first few loyalist templars straggle their way into the camp at Haven. Vivienne says nothing when she sees Andraste’s herald go pale in the face. She has strategically put their spymaster between herself and the armored knights who bow to her as they pass. She doesn’t smile or speak to them, simply nods and crosses her arms.

Many mages fear templars, Vivienne knows, for obvious reasons. But this is not simply fear of being declared an apostate, dragged away from home and family to live in a Circle full of strangers. Lavellan’s eyes are too bright, too quick to dart from one templar to the next. Her fingers clutch at her clothing until the skin over her knuckles is stretched and bone white. No, not simply fear. This is panic.

She wonders if anyone else can see. The Commander is too preoccupied in greeting his new men, shaking their hands and welcoming them into the camp. Ambassador Josephine is taking down their names, eyes at her clipboard and nose to her parchment. She has no doubt, though, that Leliana is watching. Lavellan stands behind her, but a poor spymaster she would make if she were oblivious to what was happening at her back. The girl’s unease is nearly tangible in the frosty air.

Vivienne thinks this has gone on long enough.

“Lavellan, my darling,” she croons, making sure the heels of her boots are loud on the stone. The poor thing startles, whips around to face her. Vivienne pretends not to notice.

“Oh,” she breathes, “Madame de Fer.”

“Surely we have been out in this dreadful gale long enough. Come.” She holds out her arm, bidding the herald to join her. “Let us go back inside. I would like to speak with you a little more about those tomes I mentioned.”

She can feel Leliana’s eyes on them. “I believe that is enough ceremony for one day,” she says softly, and nods to them.

Lavellan falls into step next to Vivienne. The court enchanter places her arm around the small line of her shoulders, a gesture of protection, guarding her. An iron shield between the two of them and the templars filing into the compound.

No woman spends as many years in the Circle as Vivienne de Fer has and does not learn what to look for.


	5. A Truce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm blown away by the responses I keep getting to every new chapter. Thank you so much for all your support, it means the world!

A great din erupts in the war room. The events that transpired at Val Royeaux have put everyone on edge. Opinions are loud, and they seem to be at a standstill as to what to do next.

“The templars have the manpower to seal the Breach!” Cullen insists. “They specialize in putting down demons.”

Leliana scoffs. “And mages don’t? The Lord Seeker wants nothing to do with us. He’s said as much.”

“There is a possibility he can be persuaded to change his mind,” Josephine suggests. “We simply have to find something to offer.”

“I honestly don’t think that will be necessary.”

“I don’t want to ask the templars for help,” the herald says softly. She could barely be heard over the tension in the room. “Lord Seeker Lucius was half mad when he confronted me in the plaza. He left Val Royeaux to fall, what’s to say he wouldn’t do the same to us?”

“You could say the same for the mages,” Cullen argues.

“I don’t think so.” Lavellan crosses her arms. “Fiona is desperate. The templars are concerned with winning a war. The mages are concerned with saving their people. Women, children. She wouldn’t risk scaring us away.”

“So it is decided.” Leliana nods toward the herald. “Tomorrow you will set out for Redcliffe.”

Josephine’s quill scratched away at her parchment. “I shall start seeing about establishing a lyrium supply.”

“Herald!” Cullen barks.

She does not acknowledge him. Leliana opens the door for her and she makes to leave. The commander follows.

“Herald, surely you can see what repercussions this will bring.”

“Allying with the templars would have consequences of its own, commander,” she mutters, her back to him as she walks. “Neither option is ideal. The rebel mages need our help more than we need the aid of the templars, and I will not leave them to rot.”

“I understand your sympathies, herald, believe me.” His hand reaches out to timidly grasp at the crook of her elbow. “But abominations amongst our ranks is a risk we cannot—“

_“Get your hands off of me!”_

She whirls around to face him, green eyes wide and teeth bared. Cullen jerks his arm back as if he’s been burned. Her words ring off the stone walls of the chantry, and there are gasps heard from the lookers-on. Cullen has seen the look in her eyes before: a brief glimmer of terror, swallowed by panic and then by fury. It is not a side to their gentle, soft-spoken herald he had ever anticipated seeing.

She advances on him, shoves his armored chest with remarkable strength. “You listen to me,” she hisses. “You used to be a templar. I _understand_. But you are not the only one who has seen the nature of their order, Commander, not by a long shot.”

“H-herald—“ he stammers, mortified in the face of her anger.

“Believe me, when I say this, _Knight-Captain Cullen_.” She steps closer, bores her eyes into his, and for a moment he thinks she means to strike him. “I would rather face the wrath of a thousand abominations than lay my life at the mercy of a single templar.”

Cullen gapes at her. He is completely at a loss for words. She is trembling with rage before him, and he can see tears in her eyes.

“F-forgive me, my lady,” he murmurs. “I acted out of turn. It was not my place. Please.” He bows, unable to meet her gaze. “Accept my humblest apologies.”

He swiftly walks past her to leave the Chantry, ears burning red in embarrassment. He feels her stare at his back even after he shuts the doors behind him.

_  
_

\--

_  
_

“I wanted to apologize.”

Cullen looks up from his reports. The herald stands before him, wringing her hands and with her eyes lowered to the snowy ground.

“Whatever for?” he asks, brow furrowed.

“I should not have spoken to you like that in the chantry, in front of all those people. It was unworthy of me.”

“My lady, it was unworthy of _me_ to argue with you you.”

“Commander, that is your job. In truth, I second-guess myself more than I think you, Leliana, and Josephine do combined. I appreciate the counsel, truly.”

She stretches her hand out.

“My lady—“

“Let’s put this behind us,” she says softly. “I would like us to be friends, commander. Very much so.”

He tries to hide the fool’s smile he is sure has found its way to his face, but he doesn’t think he’s doing a very good job. “Very well.” He takes her small, finely boned hand in his, gives it a slow shake. “Friends.”

“Good.” She gives him a gentle smile. “And, please, call me Aria.”

He nods. “Aria.” Her name rolls off his breath like a hymn.

“There,” she laughs. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“No, my l—sorry,” he corrects himself, “Aria.”

She grins at him. His stomach does something _frightening_. “Until next time then. Cullen.”

And with that she turns on her heel, leather boots crunching through the dirty snow of the training ground. He can see Solas waiting for her at the gates to the compound, no doubt eager to discuss their journey to Redcliffe the next morning.

Cullen looks back down at his reports, but for the life of him can’t quite seem to comprehend any of the words he reads.


	6. A Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks for all your comments and feedback!

Dorian is not what she expected.

People all over southern Thedas hear the word _Tevinter_ and think villains, blood magic wielding monsters that snatch children from their mothers and drain them of their life for their own power. Not this handsome young man with the annoyingly quick tongue and wit to match.

He has been nothing but cordial with her, if a little forward. She knows he is not having an easy time of making friends, so one morning she sits with him for breakfast in the chantry hall.

“Ah, herald, good morning,” he says, regarding her over his potatoes. “I see you’ve deigned to sit with the ‘stinking ‘Vint’ this morning, as the Iron Bull has taken to calling me.”

“It seems I have,” she says cheerfully. There is not much on her plate, just a small, hard apple and a roll of coarse brown bread. She breaks it open, letting the heat from it soak into her cold hands. “Bull isn’t being fair, you really don’t smell that bad.”

“Oh, you’re being sweet.” Dorian dabs at his mustache with a napkin. Aria begins slicing away slivers of her apple to eat. “Quite a merry bunch you’ve gathered here, this Inquisition. Qunari mercenaries, elven apostates, grey wardens. Whatever Sera might be.” She sees his eyes follow something across the room, lips curling into a smug smile. “Handsome ex-templars.”

She turns to see who he’s looking at, shard of apple on its way to her mouth. “Who, Cullen?” The commander was gathering a plate of his own breakfast, no doubt to take back to his quarters. He almost never ate his meals in the hall with the rest of the Inquisition. “You think he’s handsome?” she laughs.

“I’m not blind, my lady. Or dead for that matter.”

Aria blushes, smiles cheekily. “I was hoping I could pick your brain about the Imperium, actually.”

“The dreaded Imperium?” He laughs. “My dear, it’s very kind of you to come and speak with me. I appreciate the company, especially of such a beautiful woman. Please don’t feel that you’re obligated to sit with me at meals because I make a habit of eating alone.”

Aria’s ears turn red. “I want to be your friend, Dorian. You don’t have to spend every moment of your day by yourself.” She clears her throat. “Give them time. They’ll warm up to you. Everyone here likes to seem grim and unhappy, but I promise you that there are occasionally moments of levity.”

He smiles at her, sincerely for once. She quietly returns to her apple. “You really are this kind, aren’t you?”

“I try,” she murmurs. “Lately there seems to be a distinct lack of kindness in the world. So I’ll do my best.”

Dorian takes her hand, kisses her knuckles politely. She grins at him. “Thank you, my lady herald, for your company on this fine morning. Sadly, though, I must be going.” He picks up his plate. “There’s a commander I must be introducing myself to.”

Aria giggles to herself as he leaves her. She can’t speak for her commander’s romantic preferences, but she wishes Dorian luck all the same.


	7. A Trail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thankful you all are enjoying this story so much. Please let me know what you think!

She’s going to die out here.

Haven lies in ashes behind her. She sees the smoke billowing over the mountains, can smell it on the gales of the blizzard whipping around her. The howling of the wind and that of wolves in the distance are the only sounds that accompany her tired, shivery breaths. She’s not sure where she is, even more unsure about where the rest of them are. Any tracks they might have left behind are left half-covered and unrecognizable by the rapidly falling snow.

She thinks of the Commander’s face as he’d realized what it was she’d meant to do. The small glimmer of panic in his eyes, quelled by denial and blind faith as quickly as it had appeared. He hadn’t wanted to think it, that she’d die at the hands of that monster, the darkspawn who had called himself Corypheus. She’d not been so easily convinced, though, and even now she wonders if the snow storm she’s stomping through, half dead and struggling for breath under damaged ribs, is actually real or if she’s trapped in the Beyond, doomed to wander in the cold forever.

Hours pass. She comes across an abandoned cooking fire, and she falls to her knees to feel at the ashes, but they are cold. Her fists clench in frustration. She gets up and starts walking again. At least she’s headed in the right direction.

Aria finds more signs of a trail. More fire pits, bits of wood, wagon tracks. She’s scared she won’t catch up to them, but they have to stop for the night eventually, surely she’ll make it. When she finally finds a mound of embers, still warm, something in her head takes over, willing her legs to run. She clambers through the knee-high snow, gasping. There! Light, campfire light! Behind a cliff, she can see orange light and shadows, and when she gets close enough, she collapses to her knees and calls out, gripping her overcoat as tightly around her as she can.

“She’s alive!”

The sound of her ragged breaths, deep in her chest, almost drowns them out.

“Maker’s breath.”

She’s so tired. So exhausted she can’t lift her head. When someone kneels down in front of her, holds her by the shoulders, she can’t even look up to see who it is.

“You’re alive.”

 _Cullen_ , she thinks, and her whole body pitches forward, falls on him. The fur of his collar is so warm she thinks she might cry. He fumbles for a moment to catch her before she lands face first into the snow.

“Call the healer!” Leliana orders someone. Aria curls against the commander, trying greedily to leech all the warmth she possibly can from him. She can’t help herself. She can feel him shiver when her icy cheek finds its way underneath his chin.

“She’s _freezing_ ,” he says grimly, and suddenly she’s being lifted up, cradled like a child. She makes a tiny, panicked sound that is immediately swallowed up by the wind and scrambles wildly to wrap her arms around his neck, terrified he’s going to drop her. He doesn’t. Creators, he’s so _warm_. “Aria,” she hears him say, and she gasps when his cold fingers touch her face. “Aria, you have to stay awake. You can’t fall asleep yet.”

 _Oh yes I can_ , she thinks, wants to say it out loud but her lungs aren’t really at their best, and she can feel two cracked ribs, at least. The hazy cloud pressing on her mind is probably some kind of concussion she’d somehow managed to ignore, and she’s lucky she even woke up in the first place, after falling down that shaft and landing on her head.

She’s being wrapped in blankets, she realizes. They’ve made it to a makeshift infirmary, and Cullen has transferred her onto a wooden cot. A bottle is placed to to her lips, and she drinks. It’s a healing potion, she realizes, and she drains the whole thing. It lands like fire in her belly, warming her from the roots of her hair all the way down to her toenails. She shivers and lets out a pleased moan.

Someone holds her face, forces her eyelids open to see how her pupils dilate. “She’s concussed,” they say. Solas. “Are you injured?” he asks her.

“My, my ribs—“ she gasps, and he starts to lift her clothing away to examine her abdomen. She hisses at the cold, stiff fingers on her skin, tries to squirm away, but he holds her there. She starts to panic.

“Aria,” he says gently, “please, be still. We need to bind this.”

It takes Leliana and Mother Giselle both to hold her down while Solas wraps her ribcage tight. Aria struggles, tries to wrench his fingers away, can’t stand the feeling of them on her bare skin. Delirious, she thinks back to clammy, sweaty hands on her, whiskey breathed into her face, and she starts to cry. When Solas is finished he whispers a quiet apology in her ear, _abelas, da'len_ , wraps her back up in her blankets.

Someone tries to get her to drink again, but she stubbornly turns her face away. All she wants to do is sleep. “Drink, child,” she hears Mother Giselle tell her. “Drink this and then you may rest.” She sighs and drinks the whole thing in three long gulps. From beneath her heavy eyelids, the world is tinged a burning orange color from the campfire roaring just a few feet from the cot. It fades away as she finally drifts into a deep, deep sleep.


	8. A Spirit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be spending the majority of tomorrow traveling, so I'm posting this chapter tonight. As always, thoughts and feedback are much appreciated.

Skyhold is full of debris, dust, and cobwebs.

Fallen, rotting beams litter the floor in nearly every room in the castle, and Aria has to be careful of where she steps, lest she trip on a stone trying to come loose of its mortar. The halls are drafty, cold places, and for the first few nights they all have to sleep in their tents in the courtyard.

Cassandra was supposed to be sharing a tent with her, but she had left some time ago with a book under her arm. Didn’t want to keep her awake with the candlelight, she’d said. Tonight, Aria is grateful.

She dreams of that afternoon in the woods.

There are hands everywhere, in her hair, her mouth, on her breasts, between her legs. Every breath she takes smells of whiskey and sweat. Someone else’s mouth. She wants to kick and scream but she can’t move, she’s paralyzed and helpless. The pain is there, something is inside her. Pain and sweat and so much blood, everywhere, on her hands, thighs, chest, dripping from her eyes. She opens them and sees a templar with red crystals sprouting from his temples, the monster from Haven, Corypheus, standing over his shoulder, watching, and she shouts—

“Aria!” someone whispers to her, and she bolts upright, chest heaving and covered in cold sweat. She’s trembling where she sits and tears pour down her face.

“Aria, it’s Cole,” the voice whispers again.

“Cole,” she breathes, trying to remember where she is. She is in her bedroll, alone in her tent. At Skyhold. Solas led her here, they walked all the way from Haven in the snow. Cole, who was Cole?

The spirit boy, she remembers, the one called to people who are in pain, hurting.

“May I come in?” he says from outside.

“Um.” She looks around for something to cover herself with, realizes she’s still fully clothed. Her staff lies next to her. “Yes,” she says.

He quickly swoops in, closes the flap behind himself. “I heard you,” he whispers calmly. “I heard your dreaming. You’re scared.”

She nods, breathing heavily. She draws her knees into her chest and buries her face in them. She is a woman now, nineteen years old, but she still feels like that child in the woods.

_“Fingers grabbing, everywhere, leaving bruises where they touch me, pain, red like wild roses in my belly, thorns pricking and bleeding me dry, I beg and cry—keeper, it felt good, why did it feel good, it hurt but it felt good, and I don’t understand—“_ Cole shudders in a gasp, _“—keeper, is it my fault, am I weak? Is that what it’s supposed to feel like? What love feels like?”_

Aria sobs. She hears Cole shuffle closer to her on his knees. One of his hands takes hers, holds it to his cheek. It is wet. She looks up and sees him sitting cross-legged on her bedroll, sobbing into the palm of her hand.

“I was fourteen,” she weeps. “I was a little girl. I was so little.”

Cole nods his head, over and over again.

“He was so big, so mean. You couldn’t understand, why? Why would he do this? How could anyone do this?”

“Would you stay with me, Cole? Until I fall asleep?”

He nods again. Aria’s head falls back to her pillow, but it’s a long time before her sobbing and shaking stops. Cole keeps her hand to his cheek, rocks back and forth as he sits with her.

“Please don’t tell anyone else,” she whimpers.

“No. Never.”

“I’ve never told anyone. Never talked about it, just to the keeper. I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of. _Not_ your _fault_ ,” Cole tells her.

“That’s what she told me…”

Aria’s tears run dry. She eventually weeps herself back into exhaustion, but Cole doesn’t go anywhere. As she drifts back into oblivion, she hears him murmur in her ear, “I don’t think that’s what love feels like, da’len,” and then she falls asleep, but this time she doesn’t dream.


	9. A Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your feedback! If you would like to see what Aria looks like, I've uploaded some screencaps to my blog [here](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com/post/105566248219/this-lannister-looking-draco-malfoy-motherfucker) that you can look at. Or, if you have your own image of her you'd like to stick to that's fine too!

Skyhold has become home like she never thought she’d call anywhere home. Home was where her clan was, the creaking of the aravels in the wind and the laughter of playing children, incense and Deshanna’s voice singing the old songs. Skyhold is something else entirely.

Aria feels it in the halls, the history. It’s palpable. Solas tells her of the things he dreams. Old kings and the people who served them, Avaar squatters that came and went. Once, a Dalish clan, looking for shelter in a blizzard. She likes hearing his stories, and although she’d never admit it, she’s more than a little jealous.

The Inquisition has grown nearly a hundred fold, and she, their Inquisitor. Skyhold undergoes a transformation from crumbling ruin to headquarters for the biggest movement to rock Thedas in a thousand years.

In all her life, she doesn’t think she’s been anywhere as luxurious as her new sleeping quarters. Her feet had never felt carpet before, and the moment it touches her toes, she seriously considers forgoing the bed to sleep on the plush floor. In front of the fireplace, of course, she tells Dorian. She’s not a barbarian. He laughs at her.

Aria spends days wandering the castle. She finds hidden rooms and cellars she imagines no one’s been in for _centuries_. An old study with a monstrous armchair, covered from floor to ceiling in thick, dusty cobwebs. The books on the shelves have to be the most she’s ever seen in one place. Tomes upon tomes on constellations, weather patterns, alchemy, just about anything she could ever possibly think of to study. It puts the tower library to shame. She keeps its location to herself, a secret between her and her palace.

They have proper stables, now, stalls and pasture for all of their mounts. She spends hours there, grooming and whispering to her harts and horses. Blackwall chuckles to himself every time she passes through the barn, calls her the “hart whisperer.” She sticks her tongue out at him and dashes away to his shouts of “Spending way too much time with Sera, you are!”

One day, Solas calls her from the hall, bids her to follow him into his study. “I have something for you,” he says with a knowing grin. She glances around at the mural he spends so much time on, drinking in the colors with wide eyes. He makes his way around the desk, pulls out a basket stuffed with a blanket. She leans over to peek inside and _gasps_.

“I found him last night, in the courtyard.”

Among the blankets is the fluffiest baby barn owl Aria has ever seen. It stares up at her warily, huge dark eyes glinting in the soft light.

“I suppose he tried flying just a couple of weeks too early.”

“He’s _beautiful_ ,” Aria breathes, stretching out her hand. The little bird strikes out and nibbles at her fingers with all his might, but it doesn’t hurt at all. She pulls back, supposing he is already scared enough.

“Leliana tells me you have yet to choose a raven for yourself. Owls are faster, will be harder to find in the night. Nothing preys on them.”

“You think he can be trained.”

He chuckles. “I think you’ll find a way.”

She names him Rowan.


	10. A Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave feedback!

“I no longer take it.”

She had not expected that.

Cullen no longer took lyrium. Relief had washed over her, like a waterfall when he’d told her, and she felt guilty for it. As much as she wanted to like him, there was always that reminder, flashing in the back of her mind that yes, he was a templar. He knew how to strip the magic from her, how to drain every ounce of power she’d ever had and leave her helpless. She wanted to think she could trust him to never, ever do that to her, but it was not easy to forget the past.

Still, she felt sorry for him. Lyrium withdrawal was scary enough to hear about. He wanted to break the leash, crawl out from underneath the thumb of the chantry. She respected him for it. What came next would be difficult, and she’d promised him any support she could offer. The small, honest smile he’d given after she’d said it made it worth it.

So when she’s strolling through the gardens and finds Dorian and Cullen in the middle of a game of chess, she feels like she can let her guard down a little. Cullen beats Dorian, much to the latter’s surprise. She smiles and waves goodbye to him as he leaves them, grumbling and muttering to himself about sass and the gall of that commander.

“Would you care for a game, Inquisitor?”

She’s a little surprised. “You want to play me?” she asks, pointing to herself as though anyone else were around.

“Unless you have other matters to attend.” He makes a move to clear the board, but she sits down at the game table, crosses her legs daintily.

“Oh no. I have time.”

He smiles that lopsided smirk and sets the board for their game.

Cullen underestimates her, and she revels in it. During their casual, polite conversation, he doesn’t even notice when she’s turned the game in her favor. He may have beaten Dorian, but Aria is of a completely different caliber.

He mentions playing with his sister, and she’s curious. She asks about his family. Two sisters and a brother, he says, with both his parents still living.

“Tell me about your siblings.”

“Mia is three years my older sister. Then two years after me came Emma, and then two later Owen.” He moves across the board, just as she’d hoped he would, and she tries not to smile. “They’re all in South Reach. I don’t write to them as often as I should.”

“Large family.”

“Yes. And a loud bunch they are.” He grins to himself. “What about you? Tell me about your family.”

“Hm.” Aria considers the board for a few moments, leans back in her chair. “I never really knew my parents,” she says. “My father died of a fever when my mother was carrying me. She was killed in a bandit raid when I was very small.” She feels strange as she says it. No one in the Inquisition has asked about her family before.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cullen tells her somberly.

“It’s fine, truly,” she assures him. “I didn’t really know either of them. My clan’s keeper raised me. Her children were mostly grown at the time, and they were like my family. Deshanna tells me I look like my mother. They had been very close growing up.”

“And you became her first?”

“Yes, I did. I learned I had magic when I was seven, and she started training me.”

Cullen appears to realize the trouble he’s in. It’s all Aria can do not to laugh at him as he struggles to find a way out, coming up fruitless. “You should have warned me about your chess game,” he mutters, reaching out to make a move.

She giggles. “Where would the fun in that be?”

“Fun for you, perhaps.” He sighs, a hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck.

She finds she _likes_ the conversation they share. The commander is brisk when it comes to tactics and work, but out of the war room he is perfectly amiable. Friendly, even. And, despite the defeat Aria is dealing him, he’s fairly good at chess. He played with his sister, he tells her. She can tell that under all that armor and loss for words, he’s not an idiot. He can’t be, with a job like commander for the Inquistion.

“I believe this game is yours,” he says exasperatedly. Aria chuckles, slides her winning piece across the board in checkmate.

“It appears so.” She smiles. It had been a long time since she’d had a chance to play. “We should spend more time together,” she says, blushes after she realizes what has come out of her mouth.

Cullen is silent for a moment. “I’d like that,” he says softly.

“Me too.”

He chuckles softly, gives her a warm look. “You said that.”

He bids her goodbye, leaves her blushing in the garden. Aria pulls her legs up underneath her in her chair. She’s confused. _He used to be a templar_ , a voice tells her. _A jailor, for mages. Just like the man in the woods._ But she likes him. He’s not cruel, or hateful. Doesn’t want to hurt her. He makes her feel safe, she thinks, and she realizes that she’s in trouble.


	11. A Drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't really updated lately. Lots of holiday fun and all that. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Aria does not drink very often, it occurs one day to the Iron Bull.

Occasionally when they gather for meals in the hall, Josephine or Vivienne recommend she try a certain wine and she indulges in a glass. Once while they were scouting the coast, she accidentally drank from Blackwall’s water skin and almost instantly spit into the wind what turned out to be what he called “soup.” She’d choked and sputtered like a drowning cat while he and Blackwall laughed about it for a good half hour.

When she comes to the castle tavern, it is to visit with them, the members of her inner circle. She brings Sera treats from the kitchens every once and a while, spends some time with her on those brightly colored cushions, people-watching through the bay window. Or she climbs to the third floor to see Cole, asks him if he’d like to go for a walk. When she visits Bull, she likes to ask questions about swordplay, the Qun, Par Vollen. He doesn’t think he’s ever met anyone with the capacity for so many damn _questions_ like their Inquisitor has.

One evening, after a chat, Aria makes to leave the tavern. She passes Krem, who is sitting at the bar and drinking from a rather large tankard. The Inquisitor smiles in his direction, lifting her hand to give him a friendly wave. Krem nods back to her.

After she’s gone, Krem’s face turns red, and Bull roars with laughter.

“Never knew you had a thing for _elves_ , Krem,” he chuckles, moving to sit behind him.

“Shut it,” is the reply, followed by a long gulp of ale.

“Ah, don’t be that way, you can say it. She’s pretty.”

“Yeah,” Krem sighs. “She is. You ever said anything to her about it, Chief?”

Bull chews on his lip. “Let me tell you something, Krem,” he says, his voice low. “And don’t go repeating this to anyone.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“The Ben-Hassrath teach you to read people. And you’d be surprised at what you can tell about a person from the way they move, or what faces they make when they think no one is looking. How they act around certain people. The boss… she’s got…” He rests his chin on his fist, looking for the right words. “She’s got triggers.”

Krem’s eyes narrow, confused. “Triggers.”

“Like on a crossbow. Words, thoughts, sensations. They bring up something in her. Some kind of hurt. Like an old wound that never really healed up right. She’s good at hiding it, but every once in a while, if you’re looking for it, you can see. She closes up and looks for places to hide.”

“What do you think she’s hiding from?”

“You weren’t there, but back in Haven when the commander was pushing her to try to talk to the templars, she nearly took a crack at him. Yelled at him, got right in his face. I mean, it was pretty great to watch, but at the same time there was something just… off. She looked _scared_.”

Krem shrugged. “Lots of mages are scared of templars.”

“She’s not just scared of them. There’s something else there, I can’t really explain it.”

“The Inquisitor’s Dalish, right? From the Free Marches?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not that hard to put two and two together, Chief,” Krem mutters, staring into his tankard. “Templars in the Free Marches have a reputation. Inquisitor’s spent her whole life wandering the woods with her clan or whatever. Say she met a templar once or twice in those woods. Young, pretty Dalish girl with a talent for magic and no experience fighting. Say that one or two of those templars weren’t good men.” He drains the rest of his ale, wipes his mouth with his sleeve. His chair scrapes along the floorboards as he stands. “You can figure the rest out for yourself.”

Krem leaves Bull there at the bar to turn in for the night. He still has almost an entire tankard full of dark ale left to finish, but after digesting Krem’s words he can’t bring himself to stomach it. He wants to slap himself for not realizing. He also wants to break something.

“ _Parshaara_.” Pushing his drink away, Bull tosses a few silvers at Cabot and gets up from the bar. He wanders outside, breathing in the freezing night air.

He wonders if his boss is okay.


	12. A Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter is a bit late, last night I was having a little too much Christmas fun. But we have our first piece of fanart! [jessgoesnuclear](http://jessgoesnuclear.tumblr.com/) on tumblr made [this lovely drawing](http://jessgoesnuclear.tumblr.com/post/106037240148/it-is-christmas-eve-and-instead-of-doing-something) of Aria! I'm ecstatic and I love it, it's so wonderful to see how other people are interpreting this story and making it their own!
> 
> In the spirit of the season, I wanted to wish you all happy and safe holidays today. Whatever you celebrate, I hope it's a time filled with joy and love for you and all of the people in your lives. I just wanted to say how blown away I am by just how this story has been received. I really expected maybe a few people would read it and like it enough to leave a few kudos, but this has been amazing. The response I've had both here and on my blog has all been so much more than I could have possibly ever expected. Thank you all so much, from the bottom of my heart.

The day Aria realizes just how much she likes Cullen, it scares her.

There’s the flirting, yes. Lots of people flirt with her. Dorian’s the worst about it, but she doesn’t think much about the things he says because she’s aware he doesn’t mean it. But there comes a day that she realizes just exactly how many times a week she visits his office. The way her stomach starts doing acrobatics when he sees her. The way she stares at his scarred lips when he talks.

It goes downhill from there.

She knows that he likes her _very_ much. He seeks her out in the mornings, before sequestering himself off in his office for the remainder of the day, inquires about how she’s slept that night. He laughs at her jokes. He has a special, goofy little smile that she notices he doesn’t quite give anyone else. He worries about her. Blushes. Loses his words.

Aria doesn’t know if this is what she wants.

They play chess together weekly, dancing around the little pearls of affection. He says the quiet of the game and light conversation helps his headaches. Now that he’s told her about the lyrium withdrawal, she can see him wearing thin. Headaches, exhaustion, the day-to-day _ache_ it leaves him with. Aria knows he doesn’t like her to see him this way, so she avoids outright asking after his condition. She says what he’s doing is brave, that she admires and respects him for it. She tells herself it has nothing to do with the fact he is distancing himself even more from the templar order, but there’s still that little seed of guilt in her belly whenever she thinks about it.

She has to talk to him, she realizes. She _has_ to. The day she decides to do it, worst- and best-case scenarios come to mind. Perhaps he kisses her, what will she do then? Maybe he’ll reject her. Or, worst of all, would he not have a clue what she’s talking about?

“I’d like to speak with you,” she says at his desk, resting her hands on the aged wood.

“Of course,” he says quickly. “I mean, what would you like to talk about?”

They go for a walk on the battlements, at his suggestion. He says something about how nice a day it is, and she’s confused. What is it with humans and their fascination with the weather? Whenever the sun in shining, everyone in the stronghold feels the need to mention it to her.

“What?” she says.

“I meant… Ah.”

“I wanted to talk to you about this. Us.”

She sees the flush creep up his neck, watches his adam’s apple bob as he searches for words. “Yes.”

Her palms are sweaty, and her heart is beating so fast she’s afraid she might faint. “Cullen,” she starts, “I… care for you. A great deal. I wanted to ask… Could you think of me that way? A mage?”

“Yes, I could—I do! Think of you, that is. And… what I might say, in this situation.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “It’s just… you’re the Inquisitor. I…” She sees him panic at the disappointed change in her expression. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

Her back hits the battlement walls. He’s very close. He smells like soft candlewax, she thinks. The candles he uses to light his office and something else, something sharper. Peppermint, maybe. “Didn’t think what was possible?” She’s almost embarrassed by how breathy her voice is.

“I…” His reaches out, touches her face. She draws in a shaky breath.

Suddenly she wants to tell him. _I was raped, a man raped me, a templar, when I was a young girl, this is confusing for me, I can’t promise you intimacy, I can’t promise I won’t be scared, I can’t promise I’ll be able to accept any love you have for me, I can’t promise I didn’t come to you_ broken _beyond repair_

“It’s almost too much to ask…”

Damn it all, she thought. His face was so close to hers, his breath sweet on her lips. _Pears,_ she thinks, _he’s been eating spiced pears._ He was warm and kind and would never, never hurt her and Aria doesn’t think she’s ever wanted anything in her life more than she wants him to kiss her—

“Commander! I have a copy of sister Leliana’s report.”

She gasps, startled, and jerks away. Cullen’s eyes slide shut and she sees a muscle in his jaw flex as he grinds his teeth.

“What?” he barks at the poor boy, and Aria might have snorted, if not for the utter mortification falling like a cold boulder down her spine.

“Sister Leliana’s report,” the scout explains. “You said you wanted it right away.”

Cullen moves closer to glare at the boy, right in his eyes, and Aria swears she would have given her right leg to see the look on his face. It is then the lad peers over his commander’s shoulder, sees the Inquisitor there, bashfully rubbing at the back of her neck and trying to hide how red her face is. He looks frightened.

“Right…” he croaks. “Or, on your desk.” With that, he scurries away, out of sight and out of reach of his commander’s wrath. Cullen starts to turn back towards her.

“If you need to—!“

She lets out a soft gasp when he cuts her off, cradling her face in his gloved hands, and closes the gap between their lips. All at once, the anxiety melts away. Her wide eyes flutter closed in some vulgar cliché, a tiny sigh gusting from her lips to his. She rests her hands where she thinks his collarbones might lie under his armor and tilts her head, determined to drink him in, every moment.

He pulls away after a few seconds, breathless. “I’m, um, sorry,” he stammers. “That was just… really nice.”

She nods. “Yes,” she says quietly. “That was… very lovely.” Her forehead touches his, and she hears him let out a shaky breath, feels it hit her lips.

“ _You_ are lovely.” 

He kisses her again. Her arms come up to link around his neck, and his hands fall to her waist. There are no second thoughts. He's kissing her, and it’s _wonderful_. He has to bend his neck to accommodate for how much shorter she is and it makes her chest ache. He tastes sweet, sweeter than she ever thought a person could.

Eventually the kissing ends. She touches her fingers to his lips, feels how warm they are. He reaches to cradle the back of her head, feels the soft, short blonde hair there.

“No one’s ever kissed me like that,” Aria murmurs.

“I… don’t think I’ve ever kissed anyone like that either,” he laughs. She smiles.

“I’ll see you later?” 

“Yes, you will.”

She leans up on her toes to kiss the scar on his lip. He watches as she walks away, down the stairs and into the courtyard. His heart doesn’t stop hammering against his ribs for a long time.


	13. A Question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone had a happy holiday! Make sure to comment and tell me what you think!

In the weeks since finding Skyhold, Aria and Dorian grow to be close friends. Underneath the pomposity and his sharp tongue, she found he is a brilliantly learned mage. They spend hours discussing magic. She asks him what being schooled in a Tevinter circle is like, and he asks her about learning under her keeper. He starts collecting books he thinks she needs to read, keeps a special pile by his favorite reading chair just for her

He likes to boast about his good looks and quick wit, but deep down Dorian carries a raw, aching vulnerability, a gasping need for acceptance and a dark fear of being rejected. It’s something she can empathize with. Their companions were growing to accept him, some even to like him, but he still looked lost, alone in the throngs of southerners that came and went through the stronghold. She’d offered her hand in friendship, and Dorian, although he’d never admit it, clutched at it like a drowning man.

The painful meeting with Halward Pavus only strengthened their relationship. For once, in that dim tavern, the walls around Dorian fell. Gone was the put-upon confidence, and all that was left was the seething wound he’d left Tevinter with. She couldn’t imagine what it must feel like, for someone who was supposed to love Dorian to be so ashamed of who he is, who he _sleeps with_ , that they’d be willing to risk permanently maiming him in a blood ritual in the hopes he’d be made more _acceptable_. It made her sick, and broke her heart. Dorian’s father asks for forgiveness. Aria doesn’t think for a second she could blame Dorian if he felt unable to give it to him.

Dorian is _fascinated_ with the way she devours books, one after another, towers of them next to the desk in her bedroom. Occasionally in the evenings he’ll join her there, the wide, white chaise pulled up to the fireplace, she with her book and he with a decanter of brandy. Rowan, who is beginning to learn to fly, flitters about the room from balcony to balcony, silent as a ghost.

“No gentleman callers tonight?” she asks him, smiling impishly. Her small, stockinged feet lay across his lap.

“No. Surprisingly, not many here are too interested in taking the son of a Tevinter magister to bed. For some odd reason.” He swallows down a mouthful of liqueur. “I do hope you don’t mind if I opt to partake in the use of your couch for the evening. I may be too sauced to risk the stairs later.”

“My Orlesian chaise lounge is your Orlesian chaise lounge.” He snorts, pours himself more brandy. “I bet you’d meet more people at the tavern than you would holed up here in my bedroom.”

“Ha!” he laughs, sliding down the back of the chaise. “The tavern, she says. The audacity. Why don’t you partake in the _tavern_ , my dear? Oh yes, I remember, you were too busy kissing your commander on the battlements this afternoon.”

“Shut up.” The flush high above her collar gives her away. “How do you even know about that?”

“Really? You choose the battlements, of all places to canoodle, and expect it to stay a secret?” He scoffs. “Leliana’s scouts like to gossip in the rookery when she steps out. If the library is quiet enough, I can hear what they say. Did you know that Iron Bull has bedded _every single one_ of the healers?”

“Creators…” Aria covers her face with her book. “If it started in the rookery the whole _castle_ has to know by now.”

“Poor dear.” Dorian pats one of her feet. He scoffs. “What am I saying? No, not poor you. You kissed a handsome man today, no poor you. Poor _me_! Poor Dorian!”

“Poor Dorian,” she agrees. “No pretty boys to kiss.”

“Oh, you just wait until the next time we go to Orlais. They’ll be falling all over themselves trying to get to me. Just you wait. None of you will see me for weeks.”

“Dorian!” she laughs.

“It’s true! I don’t think you understand just how long it’s been. I’m not used to this. Never had to get used to it. I mean, look at me.”

They grow quiet for a few moments. Aria returns to her book, Dorian to drowning himself in fine Antivan brandy. Eventually, she breaks the pause.

“What’s it like?” she asks timidly.

“What’s what like? Getting buggered?”

“No. Not that. I meant… making love. What’s it like to make love?”

“Making love?” he says, and his face looks like the words taste strange in his mouth. “You’ve never made love before?”

She considers how to answer this. “No,” she decides. It’s the truth, as far as she’s concerned. “I haven’t.”

“It’s…” Dorian runs his hand through his styled hair, ruffling it into a proper mess. “Maker,” he sighs. “I won’t say I’ve ever loved anyone I’ve had sex with. But there is a… connection. I guess you could call that making love. Or something like it, it’s very complicated.”

“Tell me.” Her book lies face down, open on her stomach.

“I can tell you that nothing in the _world_ feels like it. When it’s good it’s amazing. I…” He sighs, exasperated. “I’m afraid I’m too drunk to find the adequate words right now, darling. This is a conversation best had with a clear head.”

Aria shifts so that she’s leaning against him, her head resting on his shoulder. He puts a hand on her hair.

“I heard you having a nightmare, when we first found this place,” he tells her, voice soft, almost a whisper. “When we were camping in the courtyard. I was in the tent beside you. I don’t think anyone else was awake. But I heard what Cole said to you. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I think I got the gist of it.”

Aria sniffed. “Yes.”

“I don’t know who he was, or what he did to you, Aria, but I promise you, that is not what making love feels like. Nothing like that. I _swear_ it.”

She can’t tell whether or not it’s just the brandy, but Dorian sounds as if he’s on the verge of tears.

“How do you do it?” he asks her, voice thick. “How?”

“How do I do what?”

“How can someone do something so _horrible_ to you and you… still be the way you are? So kind to people?”

“How else would I be, Dorian?” she breathes. “It’s who I am.”

“Yes.” He nods. “You’re very kind. And so strong. The strongest out of all of us.”

Eventually, they fall asleep there on the lounge. The fire goes out, and when Dorian wakes up the next morning with a menacing headache and disgustingly dry mouth, he picks her up and puts her in her bed, tucks the blankets around her. After moving the lounge back towards the stairs, he returns to his own quarters, sits at the foot of his bed and weeps.


	14. A Breeze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

They leave for the Emerald Graves, expecting to be gone a week. Aria brings Cole, Solas, and Blackwall with her to root out factions of the Free Army camped out in the woods. This is accomplished within the first three days, and she decides they’ll use the other four to scout and gather materials.

She’s gathering rashvine and elfroot with Cole one morning, the sun shining through the boughs above them. She had asked Blackwall to scour for deposits along the cliffs and for Solas to trap for skins.

Cole smiles as she reaches under his hat to tuck a wildflower behind his ear. “The petals tickle,” he laughs.

“When we go back to Skyhold I’ll show you how to make flower chains,” Aria tells him. “When I was a child, my friends and I would spend hours making all kinds of bangles and crowns. At the end of the day they’d be scattered all over the camp.”

“Did you play a lot? When you were little?”

“Of course. We would stay out until it was dark, and the hunters would scold us, tell us to get home before the shadowcats came to snap us up.”

“There are shadowcats in the forest?” Cole asks. Aria smiles.

“No. They like to keep to the mountains. But we were little, we didn’t know any better. The hunters just knew that was what would get us inside the fastest.”

“You know a _lot_ about animals, Aria.”

“Hm.” Aria kneels down to cut at an elfroot stalk. Cole wanders at her side. “I suppose I do.”

“Do you like them better than people?” He sits down cross-legged in the grass, her wildflower twirling between his fingers.

“Sometimes.” She tucks the cuttings into her satchel. “I’ve met lots of wonderful people these past few months. As much as we love our friends, though, sometimes they’re just… loud. No, not loud.” She chews her lip, looking for the right words. “Friends come with a lot. They all have opinions, favorite jokes, secrets, things like that. Animals are just quieter.”

“Quieter?”

“Yes.” Aria sighs. She lies back in the soft grass, stretches out her arms and legs. She closes her eyes against the sunbeams in the leaves. “Animals just don’t have all of those extra things. Animals just are the way they are because that is their nature. I love Joesphine dearly, and I value her opinions and advice. But Rowan does not send people to track me down because I’m a few minutes late to a fitting with my seamstress.”

Cole laughs. “No, Rowan does not do that.”

“Rowan only gets cross with me if I’m not timely enough with his dinner. He is much simpler. People are far from simple.”

They sit in the morning sunlight for a while. At first Aria feels a little guilty for slacking on their herb picking, but it had been so _long_ since she’d lain in the forest and listened to the trees. It is the most relaxed she’s been in what feels like months. The forest was in her blood, where she was born and where she’d grown up. The forest was home, and the Emerald Graves were a true jewel on the map of southern Thedas.

“Cole?”

“Yes?”

“I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“You’ve told me it’s hard for you to listen to me, what’s on the inside.” She opens her eyes, rolls over on her front to look at him. “’Like counting birds against the sun.’”

“Yes. It’s very bright.”

“What about that night in the tent? When I was having a nightmare. You said you heard me then, that I was calling for help. What was so different then?”

“Everything is different when you sleep,” Cole tells her. “Everything else gets quieter. The mark sleeps too. When you have peaceful, quiet dreams you have peaceful and quiet sleep. Nightmares change that, twist it. The mark is not there to outshine it. You are not awake to understand, so the nightmare is very loud. While your body is asleep, your mind is scared and it reaches out and calls for help without you ever realizing it. And that is when I hear the best, when people are calling for help.”

She takes a few moments to process what he’s said. A breeze catches the soft grass around them, leaving little ripples behind in the blades.

“If you would prefer I didn’t come to you again, I can leave you be from now on.”

“No, Cole.” Aria reaches out for his hand. He fingers wrap around his, their joined hands lying limp in the grass. “I don’t want you to stay away. It’s… just been a really long time since I’ve had any nightmares like that.”

They fall silent again. A pair of birds flitters by, chirping to each other.

After several minutes, Aria hears rustling nearby. She bolts upright so that she’s sitting and turns around. Solas is approaching them, a chastising smile on his lips.

“I see the herb collecting has proven too taxing for the both of you,” he says, chuckling. Aria smiles. Dramatically, she flops back down into the grass.

Cole stands up to follow Solas back to camp. He bends and holds his hand out to her, bidding her to take it. She does, and they start the journey back together.


	15. A Bouquet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to get out as many chapters as possible before class starts again. I have plenty written up so far. Please leave your thoughts below!

She starts returning from her travels to vases of flowers at her bedside.

At first, Aria assumes they are tokens of gratitude from those she’s lent aid to, but when she asks Josephine, she’s met with a confused look. There are daffodils, lilies, orchids, and she’s starting to worry she’ll be getting marriage proposals from deluded Orlesian nobles someday soon.

She asks Leliana about it, and all she gets out of her is a musical, girlish laugh.

“You truly don’t know?” giggles her spymaster. Aria stares at her for a moment, mouth slack in thought, and then it hits her. She promptly turns on her heel and makes for Cullen’s office.

“Are you the one who’s been leaving me flowers?” she demands, swinging the door wide.

He nearly jumps out of his skin, dropping the scrolls he was carrying to his desk. His eyes close in exasperation. She tries to hide a smile.

“Sorry.”

“You were saying?”

Aria clears her throat and shuts the door. He eyes her warily as she makes her way across the room.

“I just wanted to ask you if you know where the vases of flowers I find in my quarters are coming from?”

“Why?” he asks, suddenly looking nervous. “Do you not like them?”

For a second, she’s at a loss for what to say. “What?”

“It’s… been a long time since I’ve done this. Courted someone, I mean,” he mumbles, suddenly very interested in rearranging and straightening papers on his desk. “Flowers seemed like a good idea. Or, at least, that’s what Leliana suggested. It was silly of me, I apologize—“

“No!” Aria steps around the desk. She can almost hear the change in his breathing when she comes closer to look up into his face. “They’re lovely, and I really do like them. Please don’t stop.”

His face is growing pink. Aria grins at him. Slowly, she reaches up to touch his jaw, brings his head closer to hers.

Any kiss they’ve shared so far, Cullen is the driving force behind it. He is the first to pull her close, the first to lean in. This time is different. This time, Aria is kissing him. She feels one of his arms around her waist, the other gently gripping at her elbow. He’s warm and his lips, despite the scar, are very soft. She sighs against his mouth.

“Daisies.” She pulls away, eyes rising underneath her blond lashes to look at him. He seems a tiny bit puzzled, but his mouth is a little red and that makes her stomach flutter. “Daisies are my favorite,” she clarifies.

He grins and pulls her back in.


	16. A Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have another chapter up later today since this one is so short. Please leave any feedback you can!

In the dreams, her hair is always long.

She is nineteen years old, a woman, but with the same long, bright hair she had five years before. It spills over her bare shoulders, itching at the back of her neck and all around her throat. It always ends up in someone’s fist, tangled into a ragged mess full of leaves and twigs and dirt.

Her body is different but the pain is the same. She’s longer, leaner, a grown woman, but she still shakes when those hands find her, slide up her legs and over her ribs. She screams the whole time.

There is blood everywhere, blood in her mouth, her eyes, dripping from her ears. Her thighs are slick with it, arms smeared up to her elbows in thick, sticky gore. Someone clutches at her throat, traps her there on the ground like a butterfly under a pin, but she can’t see their face, can’t see who it is.

Blood staining the light strands of her hair, dripping down her cheeks. _Fuck you,_ they say, _fuck you, kiss you, rape you, bleed you, kill you, kill you kill you kill—_

She starts to thrash. The hand around her throat squeezes tighter, until she feels her eyes starting to bulge and her lips turn blue. There’s pain and it’s starting she realizes, slowly but no less agonizing than that day in the woods, all those years ago. She can’t scream anymore, the bruising fingers around her windpipe cutting off all sound, but she still fights, still squirms and kicks and claws, but she can’t get away, will _never get away from this, pretty little Aria, nobody’s ever going to fuck you like I’m going to fuck you, so sweet, so pretty_

Aria looks up at the man on top of her. She looks for his eyes, searches, trying to remember to face of the man who stole this part of her so long ago, ripped the innocence from her heart and left her to die in the woods. Her vision starts to blur, but she sees then, _finally sees_ his eyes—

They are warm and golden brown. She wakes up screaming and vomits into her chamber pot.


	17. A Doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is much longer. I'm not particularly proud of this one, so leave any constructive criticism you have in the comments.

Aria starts avoiding Cullen. She sends him a note, says he can’t make it to their chess game this week, doesn’t visit him in his office. For three days, she has her meals brought up to her quarters, trying to keep hidden away for as long as possible. When Josephine sends people to check on her, she claims she’s feeling ill. A headache, fatigue, dizziness. Anything to be left alone.

She can’t look him in the eye. When she tries, all she sees is the Cullen in her dream, pinning her down, _hurting_ her, and it makes her so sick she has to excuse herself from the war room, hand held against her lips. The pain in his face makes it worse. He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. And that’s the worst part; he _hasn’t_ done anything wrong. It’s in her head. She wants to trust him, wants a relationship, wants the flowers and the kisses and the strong arms holding her close. But she’s so scared. With love comes intimacy and… That’s not something Aria is sure she can give.

She wants to. Desperately. She wants to fall in love, wants to fall in love with _Cullen_. Cullen, who gave up lyrium and sees mages as people, who loves dogs and horses, who would never, _never_ hurt her for as long as he lives. She wants to give herself to him, wants it all. But this choking memory of being burned before, being _damaged_ will not let her.

“It’s not fair.” Her words fall hushed on the stone walls of her empty bedroom. Rowan’s head appears from under his wing, perched on his roost above her desk. Aria can feel the tears welling up against her lashes. Her lip wobbles a little, and she bites down on it, trying to make it stop. She feels pathetic and childish. Cullen didn’t deserve to be treated this way, has done nothing to earn her mistrust. But she _can’t help it_.

“It’s not _fair_!”

Aria sweeps her hand out, flinging the papers and books on her desk to the carpeted ground. She’s crying in earnest now, tears shining on her cheeks and shoulders quaking. Her nose starts to drip. She screams, kicks her chair over, knocks an entire row of books from the shelf. Rowan hoots at her, flies from his perch to the balcony above her bed, staring down at the mess she’s made of the room and of herself. Angrily, she falls to sit on the ground, legs splayed out in front of her like a child.

_Damaged_ , she thinks again. Shattered by one man, one templar one day in the woods, years ago. She’ll never fall in love, never share her bed with a man, never marry and have a family, all because one bastard of a man held her down and blighted any patch in her heart that might ever have been capable of cultivating love or trust or desire. Who would even want her? Who would ever want a broken, scared thing like her? Creators, why couldn’t he have just _killed_ her?

“You are not damaged.”

Aria head jerks up. Cole is standing in the middle of her room, the middle of the carnage she’d wrought in her fit. Aria wipes at her nose and wills herself to stop her blubbering, but the harder she tries the harder her shoulders shake between each breath. Cole falls to his knees in front of her.

“You are not a dish or a vase that’s been dropped and shattered on the ground. You can’t be damaged. You are a person, not a thing.”

“Cole—“

“Someone hurt you. Someone evil and horrible and _bad_. He hurt you but he didn’t ruin you, Aria. No one can ever ruin you. He left a scar, here.” She watches Cole’s hand reach out for her, sees him place his palm over her breastbone, over where her heart lies. “It may not ever go away. But it is not who you are. It does not make you any less _you_. You carry the scar with you, but you can look past it. You can live with it. It will be hard sometimes, and scary, but you’ll get past this.”

“What if I can’t?” she sobs. Cole smiles at her, a beautiful, hopeful smile.

“But you _can_.”

She reaches out and grabs Cole, sobs into his shoulder. He holds her there for a long time, lets her cry until she’s empty, drained of tears. She feels better after a while. Her desk and the floor surrounding it are in shambles, and she feels silly now looking at it.

“I can you help you clean it up,” Cole offers, rising to begin gathering books and scrolls and quills. Aria joins him, and together they put things back where they belong.

_  
_

\--

_  
_

That evening, Aria makes a visit to Cullen’s office. The sun has sunk behind the mountains and the sky is growing dark, stars popping into view as it grows later. When she opens the door, she sees him hunched over his desk, scribbling intensely with a black writing quill. His furred coat and armored chest plate are gone, retired to an armor stand in the corner for the night. Cullen is so focused on his writing he doesn’t even hear her come in. She knocks twice on the wooden door, and his head rises.

“Inquisitor?” he asks, putting down the quill. Aria flinches at the title.

“Good evening,” she says, stepping into the room. It’s warm, and well lit by the numerous candles littering the floors and tables. “I was wondering if you’d like to join me for chess tomorrow?” She gives him a nervous smile. “It appears I’ll be free after all.”

“Chess?” He stands up from the desk to cross the room. “I… Aria, outside of the war room, you haven’t spoken to me in _days_. Or hardly anyone else for that matter.”

“I know,” she murmurs, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’ve been out of sorts, these past few days, I’m sorr—“

“Are you all right?”

She expected to open her eyes and see confusion, annoyance even, in his face, but all she finds there is genuine concern. He is _worried_ about her. It knocks the wind from her for just a second, and she struggles to think of what to say.

“I…”

“If I’ve done anything, anything at all, that was untoward or that offended you, please tell me.”

“No, Cullen.” She shakes her head, presses the heel of her palm into her eye. “No. You haven’t done anything.”

“Then what is it that’s troubling you?”

“You said it’s been a long time since you courted someone. Well, I’ve never done this before. I… I care about you, Cullen, a lot. And it scares me. I’ve never had anyone before, not like this, and…” She sighs. “I’ve… this is hard.”

“Tell me,” he whispers, a hand at her elbow.

“I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. Maybe someday. But not now.”

Something in his expression changes. For one panicked moment, she thinks he’s figured it out, but he just pulls her close, tucks her head under his chin. Aria clings to him, breathes in the smell of him, sighs into his chest. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed him.

“Tell me whenever you’re ready,” he murmurs into her hair. She clutches his shirt between her fingers. He doesn’t know what he’s asking.

He kisses her goodnight. Her lips try to follow his even as he pulls away, and he smiles warmly at her as she closes the door behind her.

It won’t be easy. But she wants this.


	18. A Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your feedback. Please leave any thoughts for me!

Sometimes Varric lets her sit with him while he answers his post. Often late in the evenings, the fire roaring in his little alcove of the great hall and the sound of his quill scratching on parchment. Aria sits in one of the dwarven stone chairs, warmed by the fire and her soft, thick quilts. She likes the cold well enough, but the mountaintop winds are frigid enough to leave her shivering in her own castle, so she indulges in the toastiness of the fireside during the freezing nights.

Varric pays his bills, sends threats to his publisher, pens negotiations for business partners. Aria enjoys sitting next to him, in the smell of the parchment and ink. Sometimes they don’t talk, sometimes he reads her interesting letters. Sometimes he even lets her reply to a few of the more ridiculous letters. More often than not she ends up falling asleep wrapped in her blankets at the table, head lolling against the back of her chair. Tonight, though, she can’t seem to relax.

Varric stops writing to look at her from across the table. “You all right, angel?” he asks. She’s lost in her own head, jumps when she hears his voice.

“Yes,” she tells him, gives him a wry smile. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it.” He folds his letter, tucks it into an envelope. Seals it with hot red wax. “You haven’t been eating much. I know because Sera likes to brag about getting your extras at dinner.”

Aria chuckles. “It’s better than watching it go to waste.”

“I guess.”

“It’s nothing, Varric. Really. I just haven’t been sleeping well. It’s hard to eat so much when I’m tired.”

“Well, it wouldn’t do for the Inquisitor to waste away in front of our eyes, would it?” His eyes are sad. It makes her ache on the inside. “Promise me you’ll eat at breakfast tomorrow. Anything.”

“Apple galette?” she asks, only half joking. He starts to laugh.

“Should have known you’d ask for sweets. Fine, angel. Apple galette at breakfast. Just for you.”

Food has not been easy for her these past few days. She’s started attending mealtimes in the great hall again, but her appetite has been absent. She picks at the food on her plate, and more often than not ends up passing it to Sera, who she is fairly certain had tattled to Varric. Sera hates to see anyone go hungry. She takes food very seriously, and watching Aria leave so much on her plate must have worried her enough to say something. Aria’s clothes and armor have started to fit a little more loosely, and she aches all the time with emptiness, but whenever anything hits her tongue her stomach turns and she can’t bring herself to take another bite.

Varric’s hand over her knuckles startles her out of her thoughts.

“Aria.”

As he looks at her, she wonders if she reminds him of someone else. Another young elven woman, with _vallaslin_ on her face and exhaustion in her bones. It occurs to Aria that it has been a very long time since Varric has seen any of his friends, excluding Hawke only very recently. She wonders how much time he spends worrying about them, and then how much he spends worrying about her.

“You have so many friends here,” he tells her. “Whatever’s going on in your head, you don’t have to suffer through it alone. You’ve got me, chuckles, the kid. Sparkler, you two are very close. Hell, even Cassandra. She may like to punch her way through most problems, but deep down she cares. A lot. You can talk to us about it.”

“I can’t,” she whispers. “I’m not ready to talk about it. Not yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”

“That’s okay.” He gives her a tired, tight smile. Squeezes her hand “Just… We’re here.”

She nods quietly. He goes back to his post, and she eventually falls asleep in her chair.


	19. A Potion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about no update yesterday. It was New Year's Eve and, well. I celebrated to the best of my ability.
> 
> Thank you so much for all your feedback! Seeing what you think and feel about each chapter really means a lot to me.

She finds Solas in the rotunda, mixing pigments for the ever-growing mural. “Ah, lethallan,” he greets her, wiping his hands on a towel tucked into his belt.

“I need to ask a favor, Solas,” she says softly.

The friendly mood disappears when she steps close enough for him to see her face. She’s aware of the dark circles under her eyes, the sallow color to her complexion. “Aria, you look _exhausted_.”

“I have not been sleeping well.”

“Are you ill?” His reaches out to touch the back of his hand to her forehead.

“I feel fine. Well.” She sighs. “I’m not ill.”

“You’re certainly not fine.” Solas’s voice is stern.

“I need your help. Do you have anything that stops dreams?”

“Stops dreams?”

“Yes. Like a potion, or a powder or anything.” Her eyelids flutter closed in exhaustion.

“Are you having nightmares?” She nods. “For how long?”

“It started when we first found the castle. I… used to have them, when I was younger, but until recently it had been years since they were a problem. My clan’s healer used to make this powder for me, and that helped a little. I was wondering if you knew of anything similar.”

“I think I might.” He gently touches her shoulder, leading her to his desk at the center of the room. “It would help a great deal if you would tell me the nature of your dreams.”

“No.” Aria shook her head. “No, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Aria—“

“Solas, please!” Her voice cracks and her hands are shaking where they sit in her lap. “Please, just listen to me. I don’t have the strength right now, I really don’t. Maybe someday, but not now, so please just help me.”

He looks at her. Sees how bloodshot her eyes are, how weak she is with exhaustion. “All right,” he whispers. “I’ll see if I can make something.”

She’s an extremely gifted and skilled mage, but with the years he’s spent wandering on his own Solas is a far better herbalist. She follows him to his quarters, watches him as he mixes herbs and broths, thinks she recognizes dragonthorn and dawn lotus. He brings them to a boil in lavender oil. “This is a calming draught,” he explains. “I’ve enhanced its properties. After drinking, you’ll fall into a sleep so deep you won’t have the chance to dream. Not the most effective course of action, but,” he pauses and regards her gently, “Until you feel well enough to give me more insight, this should help.”

“Thank you.” She almost begins to weep.

Solas pours the draught into a tall crystal bottle and instructs her to take one swallow after she is already in bed. It works very quickly, he cautions her. She thanks him again, leaves with the bottle clutched in her hands.

That night, she does not dream, and when she wakes the next morning she sobs with relief.


	20. A Dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments! I'm on a trip with family at the moment so I didn't get a chance to update yesterday. But today's chapter is pretty long! Please leave me your thoughts!

Aria is beginning to think she no longer wishes to attend the ball at the Winter Palace.

For the occasion, Vivienne has dismissed Aria’s seamstress from the job and brought in her own. “We simply cannot have her dressed in that abhorrent formal uniform,” she explains to Josephine when the ambassador’s mouth opens to object. “The Inquisitor must make a statement, and a bold one. The affair is much too important. We have to convince the court that you are there to play the Game and _play it well_.” Vivienne’s eyes scale her from head to toe. “Besides,” she mutters darkly, “I can’t even bring myself to think of how that vermillion monstrosity will wash you out, my dear.”

Vivienne’s seamstress, Madame Grignard, is tall for an elven woman and begins _mandhandling_ Aria the moment she lays eyes on her.

“These measurements,” she grumbles, Orlesian accent thick like whipping cream, “Is your seamstress blind, _mademoiselle_? Did she mistake you for a tree instead of an elf? She has overmarked your waist beyond reason.” She lifts Aria’s arms, wraps a measuring tape around her hips, her ribcage, her bosom. Everything happens so quickly Aria is left speechless. She has no idea what the woman is talking about; she finds her clothes warm and comfortable.

Madame Grignard has already brought a collection of garments with her, and begins to pull out pieces for Aria to try on. “I’ve never worn a gown,” Aria warns her.

“My lady, this is obvious.” The seamstress bends to help her with the stockings. Aria almost feels like refusing to put them on, but she reconsiders how impolite it would make her seem. They’re tight, not like regular wool stockings, and sheer enough shimmer in the light. She’s not sure she likes them.

They get to work. Vivienne sips champagne in a crystal flute from her place on the chaise lounge, and at some point Leliana joins her. Aria can’t be sure when. She’s poked and prodded, tugged and pushed into garment after garment. They’re just fabric swatches, she learns, they haven’t even gotten to dresses!

“The fashions change like the winds in Orlais,” Vivienne tells her as she’s squeezed into a whalebone hoop skirt. Aria has a mind to voice how ridiculous it looks.

“I don’t like—“ she gasps as Madame cinches the corset at her waist. The wind is forced from her, and for a moment she thinks she’s going to faint.

“Poor dear,” she hears Leliana say. “I do not envy you. Corsets are friend to no one save the figure.”

“My _figure_ should be the least of anyone’s concerns,” Aria huffs.

“That is where you’re wrong, my dear.” Vivienne pours Leliana a glass of golden champagne. “A young Dalish elf in the palace, they’ll be looking for any excuse to dismiss you. Appearances can make a world of difference.”

After she tries on one of the heavy gowns that are in fashion in Val Royeaux, Aria puts her foot down. “I can’t even walk in this!” she sputters. “How am I supposed to sneak around the palace in a dress this large?”

“Or dance, for that matter,” Leliana says very seriously. “Madame Vivienne, what if we went somewhere a little more, well, bold?”

“Bold?”

“Yes.” Her eyes light up, and she stands. She searches through Madame’s wardrobe, pulls out a swathe of sheer, light fabric. “Organza?” she suggests.

Vivienne considers it. “What have you in mind?”

“No bustles, no hoops, no ribbons. The Inquisitor is an elf. Why shouldn’t she look like one?”

Aria’s eyes narrow. She’s not sure what they’re saying.

“Something slim, flowing. Like water.”

“Yes.” Vivienne smiles. “Yes, darling, I see what you mean.”

“Colors first!” Madame exclaims, pulling out her swatches. “We must have the colors before I am to go any further!”

The court enchanter leans back against the lounge, crosses one leg over the other. She considers for a second.

“Put her in silver.”

_  
_

\--

_  
_

The day of the peace talks, a woman is sent to see to Aria’s hands and feet. She buffs out any roughness on her heels, works at her small toes until her nails shine like glass, then does the same for her hands. It takes two people to help her into her dress.

It is a long, silky thing, made of glimmering silver satin so cool she can’t decide if it looks more blue or lilac. It is embroidered with bright crystals that fall like raindrops across her waist and breast, down the flowing chiffon of her sleeves, which hit her elbows and taper off into a point. Her short hair is pinned back with live flowers, magnolias and roses, some white and some bred to match the color of her dress. She doesn’t wear shoes; instead her feet are wrapped in long swathes of silk, twining up her calves in true Dalish fashion. Her face is powdered, her cheeks rouged ever so slightly, and her lips painted a soft shade of rosy pink. Aria feels so delicate, she’s scared she might shatter on the marble steps of the front courtyard.

When she enters the ballroom with her advisors, every pair of eyes in the room turns to them.

“The Lady Inquisitor, Aria of Clan Lavellan, in the Free Marches.”

She feels like she might break under the gaze of the court. Josephine’s words echo in her mind, _everything you say, every move you make, they’ll be watching_. She glides across the marble, the train of chiffon fluttering behind her.

“You’ll be setting trends for years to come,” Vivienne had told her. Their goal was to shock the court into submission, until they were falling over themselves for her.

And Vivienne was right. Nobles and heralds nearly break out in fisticuffs for a chance to talk to her. She floats through the palace, a vision of ancient elven finery. Like a long forgotten goddess, Solas laughs when she seeks solace in his quiet corner, a glass of champagne in her hand. She can’t find any pleasure in the bitter taste, but everyone here seems to be drinking it by the barrels, so she supposes she should at least try.

She finds no small amount of joy in the circle of brazen admirers that have gathered around Cullen. He looks dreadfully uncomfortable, and when there is a break in the crowd she takes pity on him for a few moments.

“You have many admirers, tonight, commander,” she says, grinning. He clears his throat.

“They keep asking me to dance.”

“And you don’t wish to?”

“ _Maker_ , no,” he sighs. “Oh! Were you asking—“

“No.” Aria laughs. “No, I fear I look enough like a fool for now.” She looks down at her dress.

“You don’t look like a fool.”

Cullen’s face when she looks up at him makes her stomach do flips. “You don’t think so?” she murmurs.

“I think you look breathtaking.”

Her heartbeat begins to climb. “Breathtaking?”

“Yes.” He leans in, reaches out to touch her face. For a second, she thinks her knees will give out on her in front of the entire ballroom full of people. His gloved hand touches her lips. “I see you’ve been enjoying the strawberries.” He smiles at her, brushes his thumb against a bright red stain on her mouth.

There are soft gasps about them, and Aria is sure her face is glowing pink. Cullen realizes what he’s doing, how this looks, clears his throat nervously. His hands move to clasp behind his back. “Commander,” she says softly, trying to dissipate the tension.

“I’m afraid I’ve ousted us to the court, Inquisitor,” he says nervously, blushing just as hard as she is.

“Perhaps,” Aria giggles, “Or maybe you’ve just made things worse for yourself.”

There are more people gravitating towards them, and Cullen groans. Aria smiles at him and turns to leave. She can hear him whisper a desperate “Wait!” to her, but she gives him a delicate wave of her manicured hand in farewell, wishing him all the best.

The dress is, surprisingly, not nearly as much a hindrance as she thought it would be during battle. It flutters and flows about her between spells. Her storm magic crackles around the skirts, and in a way they are not unlike the silky robes she sees most mages wearing. She drops Venatori agent after Venatori agent, demon after demon, fries them with bolts of lightning and deafens them with cracks of thunder. She feels like that lost elven goddess Solas mentioned, with the flowers in her hair and silk wrapped around her heels. When the battle is over, she daintily steps over their corpses, the long slinky train bunched up in her hands, with Bull, Varric, and Solas following close behind.

As out of her element she feels, no one seems to notice. The night passes, mostly smoothly, and when the Duchess is revealed to be the would-be assassin, Aria convinces the Empress to exile Gaspard instead of executing him. Now that the empress is safe, she and the other members of the Inquisition finally have a chance to take a breath. She finds herself outside on the balcony, alone, enjoying the fresh air wafting in from the gardens.

“That went well.”

She whirls around, startled, chiffon swishing around her. Cullen smiles.

“I see you’ve managed to elude your new following.”

“For the time being.” He joins her at the balcony, leans over on his elbows. “How are you?”

“I’m glad things are winding down,” she tells him. “I feel sleepy.”

Cullen laughs. “That would be the champagne.”

“That stuff is _awful_ , how can they drink so much of it?”

“I don’t imagine anyone drinks it for the taste.”

The conversation eventually trails off, and the both of them just stand quietly together for a few moments. The music is once again in full swing, and she imagines the dancing is as well. Cullen steps away from the balcony and holds his hand out to her.

“I feel compelled to ask.” She turns to face him, arms resting daintily on the marble railing behind her. “My lady, may I have this dance?”

She smiles. “I thought you didn’t dance.”

“At this point I feel it would be a crime not to ask.”

She takes his hand, and they start to sway to the music floating outside through the doors. Aria rests her champagne-heavy head on the breast of Cullen’s uniform jacket, breathes in the faint scent of spiced wine on his breath. His gloved hand sits at the small of her bared back, warm and strong.

They stay out there until Leliana comes to collect them for the trip home.


	21. A Bottle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your support and feedback!

The potion Solas had made for her works very well for about three weeks. She sleeps all through the night with no dreams whatsoever, and wakes feeling more rested than she thinks she has in months. She rises cheerful and in a pleasant mood every morning, and Aria starts to think that will be the end of it.

The first time she has a nightmare after taking the potion, she wakes up shrieking, and scouts run up the stairs to make sure she isn’t being attacked. She bids them goodnight, shaking and covered in sweat, assuring them it was just a strange dream and no one was there trying to assassinate her.

After they leave, she peels off the sweat-soaked cotton shift she’d worn to bed and asks one of the servants to draw her a bath. She spends the rest of the night sitting in the copper washtub by the fireplace, lingering even long after the water cools and turns icy cold.

She doesn’t eat at breakfast that morning, or at midday or later that evening. Can’t think about eating anything. Instead, when the sun starts to sink behind the snow covered Frostbacks, she finds Sera in her little alcove of the tavern and asks her for her help in drinking.

Nearly an hour later, Aria is good and drunk.

“First time drinking, right?” Sera asks her, head tilted. “Because you are some kind of lightweight.” She lets out one of her twisted little giggles. Aria nods. She doesn’t think she likes being drunk, either. Her head is heavy and her stomach feels sticky and sweet, like she’s eaten too many lemon cakes. It makes her sleepy and sick at the same time.

“How do people like this stuff?” she asks before a rather violent hiccup shakes her. She eyes her bottle of fruity, bubbly wine she thinks might be Nevarran. The taste was just tolerable, if a little too sweet, but she’d drunk it anyway.

“Gets easier the more you drink.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Sera has her own bottle in hand, but is not nearly as far into her drinking as Aria. “So. Any particular reason you decide to get right sloshed for the first time tonight?”

Aria swallows the syrupy taste in her mouth. “I’ve not been sleeping well.”

“Dreams or wot?”

“Nightmares.”

“Yeah?” She tilts her head back and drains what’s left in her bottle. Aria wonders what was in it. Sera wipes her mouth. “What kinds of nightmares? Coryffibus? Dragons or giants or something? Them giants scare the _piss_ out of me.”

“When I was fourteen a templar dragged me into the woods by my hair and raped me.”

Aria instantly regrets saying it, but she can’t bring herself to apologize. Instead she lifts the bottle back to her mouth, watches as Sera’s lips purse. Her eyes fall to the floor.

“Right.” She clears her throat nervously. “Well, that’s pretty shit.”

The room is silent for several minutes. Aria keeps drinking.

“You know,” Sera says, stretching her legs out on the colorful cushions of the bay window. “When I was in Denerim, I ran with these other kids for a while, cuttin’ purses and whatnot. Some of the bigger boys would hold me down, touch me and things. Nothing like yours, but, still.”

Aria nods. She looks a little ashamed. She must’ve sounded selfish, she thinks, and empties the last of her fizzy wine. “Oh.”

“What I’m sayin’ is!” Sera groans, pulls at her hair. She grits her teeth in frustration. “Look, I’m not trying to make you feel bad, really, I’m just shite at talking about this stuff. What I’m trying to say is, you know. You’re not alone. You’re not the only one who feels the way you feel, and it’s okay. Or whatever. Believe me. I know. I know about nightmares, and I know about tryin’ to drink it all away, and let me tell you, it don’t work for very long.”

Aria looks at her sadly. “Then what does work?” she asks, her voice very soft.

“Different things. Talking about it. Shooting prigs with arrows. Sex.” Aria’s face turns pink at that last part, and she stares down at her hands where they’re busy twisting the bottle to and fro. “Lots of things.”

“What works for you?”

Sera puts one of her feet in Aria’s lap, bounces it on her leg. “Let me ask you something,” she says, turning her head to look out the window. “That templar, who raped you? What would you do to him if you saw him now?”

Aria bites her lip. “What would I do if I saw him?”

“No. What would you do _to him_ if you saw him?” She stands up, grabs their bottles. “Think about it for a while, then come talk to me again.”

It takes her longer than usual to walk back to her quarters that night. Her head is a little bit fuzzy, and she has to hold on to the banisters as she walks up the stairs. Sera’s question keeps repeating in her head. _What would you do to him?_

What would she do to him? She’d never thought about it before. Aria had always planned on making sure she never saw the templar who raped her ever again, but… what if she did see him? What if, one day, she was in Redcliffe looking through the markets, and she saw him there? What if he were just walking around the bazaar, looking at wares? Bartering for leeks or potatoes or carrots? What if he were married, had his wife with him? What would she do?

She flops into bed, still in her clothes, and watches the ceiling spin above her. Rowan is out hunting, so she leaves one of the doors to her balcony open. A fire roars in the grate.

When she falls asleep, she dreams about what she would do if she saw the templar who raped her again. What she would do _to_ him.

First, she swings her staff at the back of his head, hard as she can. Watches him crumple to the ground. She sits on his chest. While his head lolls on the floor, she leans forward and screams in his face. _Ever been fucked before? Huh? I asked you, have you ever been fucked before? I know you can hear me! I’m going to fuck you bloody, fuck you blind, do you hear me, ser?!_ Blood starts to trickle from one of his ears.

Aria stands. She kicks out, hard, and the crunch of ribs under her boot fills the air. She kicks again, and again, and again, eyes wide and teeth bared in a snarl. Strands of her silvery blond hair fall into her eyes, and for a second she thinks about how mad she must look, but then it’s gone and all she can think about is hurting the man on the ground before her. He’s screaming and she drinks it all in like some kind of sweet sounding hymn.

She gets on her knees beside him, grabs him by the hair at the top of his head. _Look at how pretty I am now!_ Drags his head up, slams it down on the ground. Blood spatters across her face. _Pretty little Aria! Pretty little Aria who you fucked in the woods while she screamed and cried and begged for you to stop!_ He’s long since stopped shouting and his eyes have rolled back in his head. She keeps on. _Pretty Aria who can’t even think about a man without feeling ashamed and sick! Was it good? Was it worth it? I hope it was worth it for someone!_

By the time she stops, his head is a bloody, pulpy mess of brains and bone. Her hands are covered in pink gore. She stands up, screaming, and kicks him one last time. His limp body rolls over like a rotting log. Her chest heaves. She feels like some kind of wild animal, and she _revels_ in it. Her tongue flicks out to catch the blood on her lips and the taste of it makes her shiver.

Aria wakes up to the grey pre-dawn light over the mountains, sweating and trembling and _furious_.


	22. A Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry updates are getting slower, but I'm starting to run short on chapters I have stocked up. I'm still writing the next ones, so they probably won't be out every day like they used to.
> 
> All the comments everyone has shared so far are amazing. It seriously makes my day every time I read a new one. Thank you all so much.

She has to go to Val Royeaux to look for a staff blade. Harrit had heard of a new design, one with dragonbone, but was having trouble replicating it himself. Aria had promised to go to the blacksmith in the markets to get the blueprints. The blacksmith offers her a discount on one, and says he will attach it to her staff free of charge.

While he works on it, she wanders the crowded bazaar. Dorian, Blackwall, and Varric had accompanied her to the capitol, but they’d gone their separate ways with their own errands. They’d agreed to meet at the café in two hours. Aria is planning on perusing the trinket stalls, wondering if she could find something for Josephine’s upcoming nameday. Their ambassador had assured them she didn’t want an affair made of the occasion, but Aria refuses to let it pass uncelebrated. She thinks Josie might like a pretty gold bracelet, or perhaps a necklace.

The markets are packed, with people bustling this way and that. Aria likes getting lost in the droves. No one here can recognize her as the Inquisitor for once. It’s almost calming to just meander the shops, browsing and bartering with the vendors. She thinks she’s found the perfect gift at a stall manned by an older dwarven man. It’s a thin golden bracelet with tiny emeralds inlaid in each link. She waves at the vendor, who is speaking with another customer and signals that he’ll be there in just a moment.

“What a charming trinket.”

Aria looks to her side. A tall, masked Orlesian man has joined her at the stall. She thinks he might be nobility, judging by the finery he wears and the delicate lilt in his accent that she’s found to be characteristic of the upper class.

“It’s very lovely,” Aria says, trying to be friendly. She can’t get a good look at his face from behind the Orlesian mask, and it makes her a little uncomfortable. She knows how elves are treated in Orlais, especially elven women. She’d heard those two nobles in the Winter Palace talking about the elven girl in the kitchens.

“A lovely bauble, for a lovely woman.”

The hair on the back of her neck stands on end. Her ears are ringing in warning, every instinct she possesses telling her to leave _now_ , that something with this man is not right. All she can muster is a nervous smile as she makes to turn the other way, searching the crowd for one of her companions’ faces.

A hand grabs at her wrist.

“Not even going to ask after the price?” the man laughs.

“Um,” Aria stammers, “I just remembered, I have an appointment—“

“Suddenly in such a hurry! Surely such a pretty girl can be forgiven if she is just a bit late.”

_Pretty_.

The hand around her wrist shows no indication of letting go.

“ _Monsieur_ ,” Aria says indignantly. She is looking around, eyes wild, desperate for someone to notice. “Please.”

“Just a few words, _mademoiselle_ , that is all I ask.” An arm slides around her waist, and she freezes as she feels a hand ghosting against her bottom. She’s being led away from the jewelry stall, through the bustling people. Her feet feel heavy, like her legs have turned to lead.

“ _Monsieur_ , take your hands off of me! This behavior is hardly befitting of a gentleman!” Aria starts to struggle in earnest now, trying to wrench free of the unwelcome embrace. Suddenly, the man grows angry. He grabs at her upper arm, grip tight enough to hurt. His other hand reaches out and snatches her wrist.

“Knife-eared brat,” he hisses. He starts pulling her towards an alley.

Aria plants her feet firmly into the cobblestones, ready to fight for her freedom. She’s preparing to electrocute him where he stands, tiny bolts crackling in the air, when a broad figure swoops in and violently pushes the man back. He connects with the wall of a corner shoppe. She hears the breath whoosh out of his lungs with a gasping _oof_ , and he’s being held up by his collar, held up to stare into the face of his aggressor.

Blackwall snarls at him, teeth gleaming white in the black of his beard. “Lay another hand on that girl,” he spits, “And I will snap if off at the wrist.”

“Unhand me!” the nobleman demands. His mask has been knocked slightly askew, and Aria can see a stray blond curl slipping free from its gilded hood.

“If you ever come near her again, I will _gut_ you like the animal you are.”

Blackwall’s head surges forward, and Aria flinches at the resounding smack it makes against the man’s skull through the porcelain mask. He yelps in pain, and Blackwall drops him where he stands. He crumples to his knees, clutching at his forehead. Quickly, Blackwall gently takes Aria by the elbow and begins to lead her away at a pace that has her jogging to keep up.

“I could have handled him on my own,” she says stubbornly, once they are on the other side of the bazaar.

“Forgive me, my lady, but that was not a risk I was willing to take.” He looks back to make sure they haven’t been followed, then looks her over, worry softening his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she says, although she’s shaking where she stands. “I think so.”

“Good.” His hands ball into fists at his sides. “Orlesian dogs.” He spits.

“Thank you,” Aria says quietly. A lump of dread settles heavy in her belly.

“Don’t thank me, my lady,” he tells her. “Please.”

They decide to go back to the blacksmith for her staff and then wait at the café for the other two members of their group. Varric and Dorian return separately, both with the fruits of their own errands. She can tell they notice the significant change in her demeanor from earlier that morning, as well as Blackwall’s dark mood. Her face is pale with dread, mouth drawn into a tense line. Her hands can’t stop shaking. Neither says anything, but on their way out of the city, Dorian’s arm finds its way around her shoulders. He holds her tight against him as they walk, pretends not to feel her fingers clutching the back of his robes.

Aria buys Josephine a different bracelet for her nameday. One without emeralds.


	23. A Chill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support. If I'm being honest, I really don't like how this chapter came out. I couldn't exactly get it to flow the way I needed it to. More in the following days, I promise.

At some point, after wandering all over Crestwood in the cold, stormy onslaught of rain, Aria falls ill. And it isn’t the dainty, endearing cough that seems to be spreading amongst the noble ladies wandering the halls of Skyhold, either. It is a scorching fever that leaves her either in a state of burning delirium, retching her guts up into a chamber pot at the side of her bed, or shivering under a mountain of blankets, her blotchy skin covered in a glistening sheen of cold sweat. For the better part of a week, Aria is kept locked away in her bedroom by the healers. She has many visitors.

Cole comes by every day, bringing her flowers he picks from the herb garden. He weaves them into a crown like she taught him, and leaves them around her head for the healers to find after he’s gone.

Sera steals iced blackberries from the kitchens for her, sweetened with mint to settle her stomach. In her weakened state, Aria has to be fed like a child, and Sera delights in leaving her face smeared with dark purple juice.

Varric comes by to read her snippets of his latest drafts, knowing she’s too out of sorts to remember anything he says to her. One such occasion, she grabs the parchment out his hands, determined to read it herself, insisting he goes to slowly. She barely makes it past the first few words before her head falls back to her pillows and she falls asleep.

Occasionally in the evenings, Dorian will sit at her bedside, reading by candlelight with a book in his lap and a glass of wine balanced in his fingers. He holds her feverish little hand in his while she tosses and turns during the night, struggling against the illness in her sleep. Every once in a while he’ll lean forward in his chair to wipe the sweat from her brow with a cold, wet cloth, then returns to his reading.

When the healer is not available, Solas comes to check on her. He brings her a balm to spread over her collarbones, and the cool, tingling relief it gives her from the fever actually brings tears to her eyes. Sometimes he lingers at her side, speaking to her in elven. Although half the time she’s too addled to understand what he says, the familiar words soothe her to sleep, bringing back memories of her keeper singing lullabies to her when she was small.

Those who do not visit send gifts. Bull sends her a bottle of something he swears will have her back on her feet by the next morning. The healer opens it and, with one whiff of the vile liquid she assumes is some kind of alcohol, decides to pour it out into the chamber pot. Blackwall whittles her a tiny mabari statue, which Cole leaves on her bedside table. It makes her feel a little safer after she wakes from her fever dreams. Vivienne has beautiful, soft nightclothes of luxurious white silk made for her. Aria is so scared of ruining them while she is ill that she refuses to wear them until she is well again. Cassandra sends her a terrible book of poetry, which Varric reads to her, laughing to himself all the while. At some point during the reading, Aria, exhausted and sick, begins to weep, declaring how much she _adores_ Cassandra and the beautiful book she’s sent her.

Cullen visits as often as he can. Half the time, she’s asleep, and he’s content just to sit with her. When she wakes up, her face lights up at the sight of him. She gives him a weak smile. They chat about assignments, operations, the training he’s putting the troops through. Sometimes he brings her flowers. She likes the way they smell. He’s never able to stay for very long, busy as he is. He kisses her forehead, the soft leather of his glove cool on her hot skin. He asks her to get well and leaves, promising to visit again as soon as he can. Her tired little heart flutters as she watches him disappear down the stairs.

_  
_

\--

_  
_

The night her fever breaks, she has a strange, vivid dream. It comes in broken flashes, one after the other, but the imagery is so bright and it burns in her mind. She dreams of Cullen but not like she has before.

It’s gentle and soft. Both of them are bare. His hands touch her face, her shoulders, trail down her belly. It makes her shiver. They reach her hips and stay there, warm on her naked skin. She reaches out to touch him in kind. First the stubble over his jaw, rough and unfamiliar underneath her fingertips. She lingers at the scar on his top lip then moves to the strong line of his throat. She can feel him breath there, air moving in and out of his ribcage.

Every single touch burns through her body, every nerve raw and tingling. Her face is hot and she feels a flush creeping up to her cheeks. Her fingers ghost down to the dip between his collarbones, and he shivers. It makes her knees week. She leans forward, plants a gentle, tender kiss there. Her tongue darts out boldly to taste him and she feels the stuttering breath he lets out, hands tightening on each hip. He holds her there, presses his lips to her pulse and pants. He murmurs to her, lips and tongue brushing against her skin, one word over and over. Her name.

“ _Aria_.”

She wakes up with a gasp and jolts up from her pillows. She is covered in cold sweat. The cotton nightshirt clings to her small breasts as her chest heaves. Aria pulls it over her head and tosses it away. There is a strange, unfamiliar dampness between her legs and a fluttery tingling in her belly. Her thighs tremble where she lies. She holds a hand over her pounding heart and gulps in deep breaths, trying to comprehend what has just happened. The dream leaves her confused, blushing in her sheets. This dream was so… _different_. It was intimate, and she felt so, so vulnerable. It was unnerving and very, _very_ confusing.

Once she is calm and her breathing back under control, Aria takes a moment to realize that she feels much, much better. She finds a clean cotton shift to wear and returns to her bed for a few more hours sleep. When the healer comes in the next morning, she announces Aria’s fever gone. Aria asks for breakfast, finally feeling well enough to eat something other than broth. She is _starving_.

The healer tells her that the worst of the illness is past. With her fever broken, she should be feeling better within a few days. Aria breathes a sigh of relief, glad she won’t be confined to her bed for very much longer. She does her best not to think about the dream, but it had been so vivid, so new.

This was what it was like to want someone.


	24. A Demon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments! This chapter's pretty long, so tell me what you think!
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains descriptions of rape. Please do not read if you are triggered by mentions of sexual abuse.

Adamant Fortress is a disaster.

The term army of demons was not an exaggeration. They fight their way through waves of them. Menacing shades, shrieking despair demons, burning rage demons, thundering pride demons, all come for them with claws and teeth and hatred brimming in their eyes. Aria drops them one after the other. Towards the start she’d tried to keep count of how many there were but somewhere around one hundred she’d lost track. The damned _fool wardens_ just keep summoning them. The roiling taint of blood magic fills the air, and while the others don’t seem to notice, it is all she and Solas can do to keep from gagging on the stench of it.

The Inquisition manages to find some wardens still unwilling to sacrifice their brethren, fighting the possessed mages and those loyal to Clarel. Stroud barks at them to leave, to find commander Cullen and seek safety under the Inquistion’s banners. They find Hawke somewhere in the fray, and Varric’s sigh of relief is audible even over the screams and clashing of steel on steel that fills the night air. She’s breathing heavy and covered in blood, but otherwise still standing. Her hand shakes where it grips her staff.

Errimond and Clarel are towards the center of the fortress, surrounded by a circle of possessed wardens. The warden commander slits the throat of a recruit, drags a demon to this side of the veil with the blood. The magister praises her like a prized hound. The smug grin he gives Aria is enough to set her skin crawling. She tries to reason with Clarel, tells her she is being used, her order is being used. Errimond tries to cut her down with his words, calls her a fool. But the seed has already been planted. Clarel knocks him back with a spell and starts to flee. Aria is ready to kill them both and be done with it, but then that cursed dragon lets out an almighty roar and soars over their heads. Their group chases after the warden commander with the archdemon hot on their heels.

It spews red, corrupt magic as it chases them, destroying the fortress as it goes. It snaps up Clarel like an eagle does a mouse, impaling her on its teeth and then spitting her out. The dragon sets its sights on Aria. It stalks forward like a panther, ready to lunge, but with all the life energy she has left, Clarel lets loose a blast of magic that shakes the stone bridge. The beast screeches in agony. The stones come loose beneath it and it claws to keep its grip. Aria watches as it keels over the edge with a long, shrill cry. She starts running.

The fortress is collapsing under them faster than they can escape. Aria’s foot comes down one last time and the stone gives way underneath her. She falls. She sees Bull stop dead in his tracks, turn back to reach for her. He yells something, but she can’t hear him over the dragon’s screeches and the din of crumbling rock. She watches as he too is sent tumbling off the bridge, followed by the rest of them. Panicking, Aria thinks quickly and, holding her breath, reaches her marked hand out to face the ground and hopes. Everything goes black.

Now they are in the fade. Knee-deep in water that is eerily warm and smells strongly of metal, with a strange sky overhead that can’t decide if it is meant to be green or yellow. She wants to scream. “Fascinating,” Solas keeps saying, and she battles the urge to slap him. She does not cherish her dreams in the fade, like he does. They dream very different things.

“The rift was in the main hall,” Stroud says, thinking aloud. “If we made our way to that area, could we go back?”

She sighs. “As good a plan as any.”

They head deeper into the fade. They come upon Divine Justinia, or at least a spirit that looks like her. She tells Aria of the fear demon that nests in this part of the fade, explains to her how to gather her broken memories of the Conclave. Minor fear demons badger them every step of the way, skittering over the rocks at the beck of their master. The creature feasts on fear, Justinia says. And feast it does.

The demon speaks to all of them. It whispers to Bull of possession, of his body being ridden by demons like a cart. It tells Varric that it is _his_ fault Hawke is in danger once again, that she’ll die and it will be all because of him. It croons to Solas in ancient elven, but there are words she’s never heard before and they are gone before she has a chance to think on them. Solas bristles, growls back something that she understands. _Banal nadas_. Nothing is inevitable.

It tells Hawke that she never mattered, that Fenris, her elven lover, will die and that she failed her family. Hawke grits her teeth and mutters sarcastically under her breath. It says to Stroud that he failed the wardens, doomed their order. Aria keeps quiet, and waits her turn.

They come across a graveyard, dotted with tombstones. She reads one. _Iron Bull: Madness_. He falls quiet at her side. She reads another. _Varric: Become his Parents_. Another. _Solas: Dying Alone_. There are more. One for each member of the Inquisition’s inner circle. _Blackwall: Himself. Sera: The Nothing. Vivienne: Irrelevance. Dorian: Temptation. Cole: Despair. Cassandra: Helplessness_. And in the very last row, right in the center, sits hers, taller than any of the others.

_Aria: The Woods_

She grips her staff so hard her knuckles turn white.

“The Woods?” Iron Bull says quietly. She hears Varric slap his arm, a gesture that says _shut the hell up_. She says nothing. Offers no explanation. Just turns on her heel and leaves the graveyard.

“Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

She’s scared. A pit of dread settles heavy in her belly, growing larger with each step they take closer to the demon. When they find its lair, she gives an audible gasp. A monstrous, grotesque spider waits for them, blocking the way into the rift. Before them, an aspect of the nightmare, man-sized but no less unsettling. The spirit of the Divine throws itself at the spider, leaving them to deal with the smaller demon.

Aria is on edge before the battle even begins. She throws up a barrier around the six of them, watches as Bull charges into the fray. She, Solas, and Varric spread out for ranged attacks. More of the little spider demons trickle in, and she takes them out one by one, zapping them with lightning until they are dead and charred. Once Bull has weakened the monster’s defenses, she moves in, spirit blade poised and ready in her hand. The creature turns to face her, fixes her with its many eyes.

“Ah, Inquisitor.”

She lunges, swipes at its legs, but it floats away just out of her reach. She growls, annoyed, and steps back to throw more lightning.

“You inspire such loyalty in your followers. Their strong, brave leader. I wonder… What they would think of you if they knew just how _weak_ you are.”

“Don’t listen to it, angel!” Varric yells to her. She’s trembling now. She’s not sure if it’s rage or fear, or both. She steps back, downs a tonic. She feels Solas’s eyes on her at her side.

“Sweet little Aria, walking alone in the woods. Thinking about a boy, what was his name?”

“Be silent, demon!” Bolts of magic fly from the end of her staff.

“Ah yes, Errol. The boy with the black hair and the scar on his chin. He made you that necklace, and you wanted to kiss him. Well, until the templar found you.”

“No!” Aria stumbles on a rock, leans on her staff for support. The spider demons surround her, and she fries them in a chain of electricity. An ache starts growing in her chest.

“He stole your necklace. Tore your skirt. Said you were _so pretty_.”

She lunges again, this time managing to catch the monster’s arm. It hisses at her, drifts back. Bull follows it.

“He tied you to that tree, Aria! He said you tasted so _sweet_. ‘ _Like fucking honey and clotted cream_.’”

Bull lets out a battle cry, his face twisted into a snarl as he hacks away at the beast’s hide. Aria builds a spell in her hands, waits for the magic to collect there.

“You begged him to stop while he fucked you. You cried and pleaded the whole time. Like the weak, pathetic child you are. And when he was finished, he left you to die against that tree, and _you wish you had_.”

She casts, and a sphere of pure lightning engulfs the demon. Bull jumps back from it, cursing loudly. The creature shrieks as she holds the spell. Bolts jump off the rocks, leaving black starbursts in the wake. She screams as she kills it. Watches its body char, skin blackening and peeling back over its bones. Her magic wavers, mana slowly depleting, but she keeps on with everything she has left, determined to burn out everything the monster said, burn it away and leave the air clean—

“Aria!”

Solas jerks her arm back, and her spell breaks in the air, stray bolts crackling into nothing. She turns to face him, chest heaving and eyes wide, mad-looking. Solas’s grip on her arm is harsh. All that remains of the nightmare’s puppet is a pile of ashes and charred bones.

“Let me go,” she demands, voice dark and low.

“What were you thinking!” he yells. “I _felt_ the magic draining from you! You could have died casting that spell!”

She rips her arm from his grasp. “If we make it out of here, feel free to lecture me all you want, but right now we have _much_ more pressing matters to attend to!”

She feels them staring at her. Feels the change in the way they look at her. It makes her skin crawl, and she wants to hit something. As it is, she’s trembling and exhausted, and they need to leave.

Stroud stays behind. He begs her to rebuild the order. As he charges towards the demon, she hears him recite their oath at the top of his lungs, and the nightmare’s shrieks follow them as they jump through the rift.

The rift spits them back out into Adamant Fortress’s great hall before she turns and seals it shut. The room is filled with people, Wardens and Inquisition alike, and they stare in awe at the sight of them. “The Inquisitor!” someone shouts, and suddenly the air is very loud. Aria feels an arm around her waist, and when she looks at her side, she sees Varric there, keeping her upright. She leans on him.

There are questions, and she answers them. She tells the Grey Wardens that they will right their wrongs by joining the Inquisition’s soldiers in fighting demons. They cheer her, celebrating the victory. Aria feels hollow. She left a man to die in the fade, and her secret is now no longer a secret. There’s nothing for her to celebrate.

She looks around at her companions. They look back at her with something that looks like _pity_ , and it almost makes her sick. She feels vulnerable and exposed, and the last thing she wants is pity. She wants them to forget what they heard and go back to seeing her as their kind, light-hearted Inquisitor. Not the scared, sad child she feels like.

She turns to make for her tent in the camps, but Cullen jogs to her side. “Maker’s breath, you’re alive,” he says with a wide smile. He moves to touch her cheek with his hand, but she moves away. “What’s the matter? Are you injured? I can get the healer.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I just… I need some air. I need to be alone.”

She leaves them there. Cullen turns towards Varric, mouth agape in confusion. “What happened?”

“No, curly,” Varric says, sullen. “That’s her story to tell. Not ours. Not anyone’s.”


	25. A Breath

One of the perks of traveling back form Adamant with the army camp was her tent. Every night, when they stopped to set up camp, a huge, roomy tent was set up for her use, complete with a soft cot, plenty of cushions, and her own copper tub. She was able to dress and bathe in complete privacy, which was not a luxury available to her when they went on scouting missions at typical Inquisition camps and outposts.

It takes four days to get back to Skyhold, if they devote the entirety of their daylight hours to traveling on horseback. Aria spends the days on the road avoiding anyone who is not a servant or Inquisition scout bringing her news or asking after a missive. Cullen is farther down the line with the troops, while the others give her some space. The only steady contact she has is with her Dalish paint, who she murmurs to softly in elven during the day and sees to herself when they camp at night. It is the quiet, tranquil companionship she desperately needs then. The mare’s only responses to her worries are a soft nicker, or the occasional nuzzle to her face when Aria rubs her down in the evenings.

She is slow to rise in the mornings, waiting until the last possible moment to roll out of her cot and dress herself. She never attends breakfast. If any of her companions object, she hears nothing about it. On the morning of their last day on the road, however, the flap to her tent flies open. Aria lets out a pitiful groan of disgruntlement and pulls the quilts up over her head.

“The sun has only just risen! I assure you, I am more than capable of waking in a timely manner without— _Dread Wolf take you_!”

The quilts are wrenched from her grip, leaving her cursing and squinting against the morning sunlight. She raises a hand against her eyes, shielding them from the blinding rays, and makes out the stark outline of Iron Bull’s horns.

“We are going on a walk.”

“By the _void_ , we are,” she hisses, scrabbling for her blankets. He holds them out of her reach. Aria flops indignantly back down on her cot, shoves her face into a pillow. She shrieks as one of Bull’s giant Qunari hands reaches underneath the pillows and wraps around her arm. He drags her bodily out of her bed. She lands unceremoniously on the floor, bare feet scrabbling around on the rug. He pulls her upright, shoves her toward her trunk and armor stand.

“Go on. Get dressed.”

“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, Bull, but you’re lucky I don't have the guards called in.”

The night before, she had gone to bed in the soft clothes she wears under her armor, favoring their warmth over that of the bedclothes her chambermaids had packed for her. Bull, fed up with waiting, plucks her enchanter’s overcoat off of her armor stand and throws it at her. She huffs and glares at him, waiting for him to back down. He doesn’t. His stare is stony and indifferent. He crosses his arms, ready to wait all morning if he has to. Exasperated, Aria sits down and starts to put on her boots.

Once she’s dressed and given the chance to splash some cold water on her face from the basin in her tent, she follows Bull outside. The camp is already bustling, scouts and soldiers waiting in line for porridge. Bedrolls are being put away and tents dismantled for the journey ahead. There are plans to reach Skyhold by nightfall, and Aria can't say she isn’t eager for the comfort and security of her own quarters. She desperately misses her fireplace and her books. And Rowan. Creators, she misses Rowan.

Bull leads her away from the camp. They walk for nearly half an hour, tromping through the ankle deep snow and down the forest-laiden mountain. The cold air is brisk in her lungs, and her breath leaves her in a swirling plume of mist. Curious little nugs follow them cautiously, always nearly a dozen paces behind, but close enough for Aria to hear their little chatters and squeaks. It brings a tiny smile to her face.

Their walk comes to an end at a clearing in the firs. Bull lifts up a heavy branch for her to walk underneath. She passes through the needles, eyes landing on the sight before her.

A gleaming, frozen lake fills the valley before them, surrounded by the edges of the evergreen forest. It’s beautiful in the snow and the golden morning light. She immediately forgets her anger from Bull’s impromptu wakeup call, instead struck speechless by the beauty of the scene around them. Birds twitter cheerily among the treetops. On the other side of the lake, a little red fox and her three kits trot along in the snow. Aria sinks down, sits with her knees pulled up to her chest. The air is still, and this is the most peaceful she’s felt in months.

“Here.”

She looks up and barely manages to catch the handkerchief-wrapped bundle Bull throws to her. She unwraps it, and inside is a warm, crisp loaf of bread, a large plum, and a ration of salt pork. Bull slowly sits next to her and pulls out two large, lidded flagons of hot cider. He holds one out for her, and she wordlessly accepts.

“Varric was worried you weren’t eating. Packed that up himself.”

Guiltily, Aria breaks off a chunk of the bread and brings it to her mouth. Slowly chews and swallows, tears off another small piece. She has half a mind to offer some to Bull but she doesn’t think he’d accept.

While she eats, they watch the foxes across the lake. The babies take turns pouncing on one another, nibbling on ears and tails in play. Their little barks and yips touch a place in Aria’s chest that makes her throat swell up a little. The mother fox sniffs around the tree line. A kit rolls into her back legs, and she turns around, quick as lightning, and nips the little thing in warning. The whole spectacle makes her giggle.

“Feel better?”

Bull’s voice rumbles in the quiet winter air. She wraps up the crumbs of her meal, reaches for her cider. “A little,” she says softly.

“Good.”

There’s a long, pregnant pause. Aria clears her throat. “About what happened in the fade—“

“I don’t want the whole story,” he tells her, eye still following the little foxes. “Especially if you don’t actually want to tell it. I just want you to know that this doesn’t change anything. You’re still the Inquisitor. We’re still in this until the end. I’ll still follow you into any dragon’s lair, any giant infested forest, anything you ask. _Nothing_. Has changed.”

She almost can’t comprehend his words. “You don’t think I’m weak?”

“Are you kidding me? Boss, I’ve seen you send entire lines of men up in smoke with a snap of your fingers. If you’re weak, then I’m the Empress of fucking Orlais.”

That gets a little chuckle out of her.

“You are still the boss, and nothing will ever change that.” He swallows, almost nervously she thinks. “Some sick fuck… attacked you when you were a kid. That’s not your fault, and it says nothing about you. Only what a fucking coward, what a fucking _animal_ he is. If you ever tracked down the son of a bitch, I’d love to be there to watch you make him pay for every second of everything it’s put you through. And I think I can say the same for the rest of us.”

She nods in understanding. The four foxes disappear into the trees, resigned in looking elsewhere for their morning meal.

“Just—Don’t… do this anymore. Okay? You can’t just disappear for days, you can’t avoid everyone and stop eating. Don’t keep this shit bottled up. It’s not good for you.”

Aria doesn’t respond. She rests her chin on her knees, wraps her arms around her legs and clasps them at her ankles.

“We don’t know how to fix this, and we certainly don’t know what it’s like. But there isn’t a single on of us that wouldn’t do anything to help. You’ve got to know that.”

“I know.”

They finish their cider. After a few more minutes, Bull pulls her to her feet and leads her back to the camp. When they get back, Solas and Varric are waiting for them. She sees the concern in Varric’s face, the tension in the line of Solas’s shoulders. She gives them a reassuring smile, pulls Varric into a one-armed hug that he eagerly returns.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” she says good-naturedly, “But I’m ready to be home.”


	26. A Bath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your feedback. Some of you have even contacted me or followed me on tumblr! It amazes me the impact this story has on so many people, so never hesitate to contact me if you think you'd like to!

Aria _hates_ the desert.

She hates the sand, the way it gets everywhere, in her eyes, her mouth, her clothes. It litters the carpet in her bedroom for weeks after every trip, no matter how much the rugs are beaten and the floor swept. A few times she’s actually had to try and brush it out of her ears. She hates the sun and the way it leaves her fair skin red as a cherry and painful to the touch. Her first time in the Western Approach left her burned from the top of her head to the backs of her wrists, anywhere that wasn’t covered by her armor. She now wears a special hat scout Harding had given her, one made of breezy, silky cloth that covered all but her eyes from the harsh sun. She could have kissed the pretty dwarf after that first day, when she returned to camp just a little pink around the bridge of her nose.

More than anything, Aria hates the _heat_. It drives her absolutely mad. The sweat that drenches her every second of every day, when she is sleeping and when she is awake. It makes her armor stick to her, chafing as she trudges through the dunes behind the rest of the group. The salt of it burns her eyes. No matter how much water she drinks, her lips are always cracked and dry, her mouth like thick wool when she swallows. At the end of the day, she is grimy and smelly and disgusting, and it makes her skin crawl. There’s nothing quite like going to bed at night drenched in sweat and sand and then waking up the next morning covered in the _same_ sweat and sand.

The desert puts her in a remarkably ill temper, and the rest of her companions have learned this. Their normally cool, sweet tempered Inquisitor transforms into an angry, shrill thing when left in the heat too long. She’s prone to snapping at any one of them, at any given moment. Aria feels terrible after doing so, always apologizes once they are back in the frigid mountaintops that the Inquisition calls home, and more often than not they find it rather amusing. Cranky, Sera had called her once while they were scouting the Hissing Wastes. Aria had lobbed a fistful of sand at her, which sent her shrieking. From then on, Cranky became her desert nickname.

The one small reprieve for her during their desert excursions is the oasis. Aria insists on visiting the poolside camp every time they are in the west. They spend a day or two resting and replenishing their water supply, as well as enjoying the cool, refreshing pools amidst the cliffs. It’s a nice break in the monotony of sand and sun before they are thrust back into the heat for the tasks they originally left Skyhold for.

On one such occasion, she and her companions are making their way back to the mountains after tracking a dragon in the Approach for that strange Orlesian scientist. It had been nearly a fortnight of scouring the dunes for charred corpses, clearing out mercenary bands, and carefully disarming huge, dragon-sized traps. Not even Aria’s enthusiasm for studying wildlife was enough to keep her excited about the ordeal. By the time they were through, the entire group had had enough of the arid landscape. Even Dorian, who was notorious for his disdain of the cold southern climate, was more than ready to return to their snow-covered fortress. They make their way to the interior camp by the water and settle in for an afternoon spent resting in the misty spray of the nearby waterfall.

When the sun is just about to begin its descent, Aria decides it is time for a bath. The desert heat is starting to waiver with the sunset and she’s eager to scrub the trip’s grime and stench from her skin. Normally she doesn’t bring her personal oils and soaps with her for missions, but she’d known they’d be stopping by the oasis camp. She asks Cassandra, the only other woman on this particular trip, if she’d like to join and the two of them gather up their bathing kits and head for the pools.

Growing up amongst her clan, camping all over the Free Marches in aravels and tents, Aria is no stranger to undressing in front of other women. She isn’t particularly proud of her body, but she isn’t ashamed of it either. Characteristic of the people, her breasts are small and, although still rather bony, her limbs have been strengthened and solidified by months of training and combat with her staff. Quite unlike Cassandra, who is all lean and muscled curves. Human women also have hair on their bodies, which she finds a little bizarre but is beginning to grow used to. Cassandra is her opposite, she thinks. The seeker is pretty in ways she will never be, with her sharp features and dark hair and eyes. She has curves where Aria has angles, muscles where she has bones. Strength, her mind supplies. Everything about Cassandra suggests strength, and Aria is more than a little jealous.

They bathe in comfortable silence, both glad for this chance to relax and enjoy the cool water. Aria scrubs at her skin until it is pink and raw. Kneeling in the water, she works the soap against her scalp and lathers the suds through her dirty hair. A sigh of contentment passes her lips before she leans forward, submerges her head to rinse the bubbles loose. When she comes back up, she slicks her short hair against the curve of her skull. Rivulets trickle down her face and throat.

Cassandra is looking at her from where she sits on the rocks, working her rationed chunk of soap over the sole of a foot. “I have a question, Inquisitor,” she says quietly.

“About what?” Aria stretches her legs, wiggles her toes underneath the water. A few tiny fish have appeared to see what all the fuss is about, and one of them kisses at her heel. It makes her smile.

“Your tattoos.” Cassandra dips her soapy foot into the water and moves on to the other one. “They’re very beautiful.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Do they have a special meaning?”

“ _Vallaslin_ in general, or mine in particular?”

“I know the Dalish mark themselves when they come of age. Like a rite of passage. The blood of your people. But yes, your markings in particular. What do they mean?”

Aria runs her fingers over her forehead, where she knows the path of every silvery green branch inked into her skin. She remembers the day she’d received them, how scared she’d been. She’d shaken so much she was sure the lines would end up crooked.

“Each _vallaslin_ honors one of our gods,” she tells Cassandra. “When they come of age, every Dalish child chooses one god to favor with their coming into adulthood. There are many different patterns for singular gods, and styles differ between clans, but they all have similar designs and themes.”

“And which god did you choose?”

“My _vallaslin_ honors Mythal, the Protector and All-Mother. She is our goddess of motherhood and justice. I didn’t know my mother very well, so Mythal was always special to me. When I received my _vallaslin_ , I asked her for protection and guidance.” She swallows quietly. “And for justice.”

“Against the man who hurt you.”

“Yes.”

They grow quiet. Cassandra returns to washing her feet. Aria sits in the water, arms crossed over her chest as she watches the fish dart around her toes. She has questions about what Cassandra meant, how she’d known what to ask. It was no longer a secret, but there were only a select few in their inner circle who knew about the woods. She highly doubted any one of them had been spreading it around like common gossip, but the thought that one of her close friends deemed something so traumatic to her trivial enough to conversation over was disconcerting,

“How did you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Cassandra says, “I presume too much. I should not have said anything.”

“No. It’s all right. I’m just curious.”

The seeker rinses her other foot and sets the soap down on the rock. She pulls her knees up to her chin in a surprising gesture of vulnerability Aria didn’t ever think she’d see from her. “We women,” she murmurs, quiet in the approaching night air. “We learn early on that not all men can be trusted. Some think we are lesser for our sex. Some see us as objects, not even as people. And, worse yet, some see us as prey. It’s… something to find solidarity in, I feel. Something we all fear. All women have that in common. It was not hard to find that in you.”

Aria doesn’t know what to say.

“Did you ever learn what became of him?”

“No.” She leans back in the water, closes her eyes. “I know he was a templar, and that he served in the Kirkwall circle. My clan was camped somewhere between Kirkwall and Starkhaven, and when one of our couriers took a message to both cities they’d said the Starkhaven circle there had burned down. They didn’t have any templars in the field.”

“If he was from Kirkwall, Cullen might have known him.”

Her eyes open wide at that. She sits up with a small splash, brows furrowed in confusion. “Do you think so?”

“It’s possible. He was knight-captain there. If your clan sent a message to the Kirkwall order, there’s a chance he might have heard about it.”

“Do you think he could find him again?”

“I… don’t know, Inquisitor.” Cassandra is quiet for a moment as she thinks. “It has been some years since he left. After what happened between the Kirkwall mages and templars, and the rebellion—it is very likely he is dead.”

She can’t think straight. Thought after thought buzzes through her mind like a swarm of insects. Cullen might have known him. Cullen, who kissed her and held her like he needed her to breathe, might have known and commanded the man who had _raped_ her. The thought made her sick to her stomach and set her skin crawling. She almost wishes Cassandra hadn’t said anything, but then her eyes go wide. If Cullen had known him, then they could find him. Leliana could track him down. Find out what happened to him, where he was. 

She could have justice.

They finish their bath in silence. Aria shares a tent with Cassandra that night and, after the candle has been blown out and books shoved back into packs, she stares at the canvas ceiling above them, thoughts churning over themselves in her head. She fidgets in her bedroll. Cassandra rolls over to face her and lean up on her elbow, and Aria is about to apologize for the noise she’s making, but what comes out of the Seeker’s mouth is not a complaint.

“If… speaking to the commander about this is difficult for you,” she whispers, more softly than Aria ever thought she was capable of anything, “I could ask him.”

“No,” Aria breathes. She closes her eyes, wills the sick feeling in her belly down. “I appreciate the thought, but this is something I need to do myself.”

“Yes.” Blankets rustle as Cassandra moves to lie down again. “Of course, Inquisitor.”

A few silent moments pass without either of them managing to fall asleep. Timidly, Aria reaches out and touches her fingers to where Cassandra’s arm lies in the dark.

“Thank you,” she murmurs. Cassandra’s hand finds hers, the lightest of touches against the rough wool of the blankets. They sit for several minutes, listening to the nighttime wildlife in the oasis. Before rolling over on her side, Cassandra takes a deep breath and says, very seriously,

“I hope you kill him.”


	27. A Confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Hi everyone! So sorry this chapter took so long to come out.
> 
> I've been very busy! I changed my major to French, a whole season of RuPaul's Drag Race has come and gone, and I am posting this from _France_! I'm currently studying abroad and it's absolutely wonderful.
> 
> Thank you all for your encouraging words and comments. I promise you I have not abandoned this story, I've just been very, very busy!

It takes weeks for Aria to find the courage.

She spends a lot of time hiding away. Her quarters, in the library with Dorian, holed up in the private study underneath the great hall. She distracts herself with books and work. Plans to build an infirmary in the courtyard are drawn up, and she spends sleepless nights looking for the funds and resources with the quartermaster.

Despite the distractions, the question is still there in the back of her mind, and all the doubts and anxieties that come with it. What if Cullen couldn’t help her? What if he didn’t know the templar after all? What would he think of her after she told him?

What if he didn’t want her anymore?

And then one day, at the end of an advisor meeting, she asks.

“May I speak with you for a moment?” she calls after Cullen as he turns to leave. “Alone?”

“Of course,” he tells her, and lets the door fall shut behind Josephine and Leliana. He gives her a friendly smile over the table, and her stomach drops. “Something I can help with?”

“Well, yes.” She shifts from foot to foot. Cullen’s smile fades as he notices how uneasy he is. “I need to ask something of you.”

“Of course.”

Aria can feel the dread sliding from the top of her spine down to her toes. It leaves her hands shaky and sweaty, and she wipes her palms on the legs of her trousers. They come up to protectively clasp over her stomach. “It is a very delicate… sensitive matter. This is not easy.”

“Aria, what’s wrong?” His voice is soft. It makes her shake harder.

“Five years ago, when you were stationed in the Kirkwall circle. My clan was camped nearby, and there was a message sent to the Knight-Commander. One of the templars had…” She has to lower her eyes to where her fingers are twisting together against her middle. “Attacked one of the young girls in the forest. I thought that maybe, at the time, you had heard something about it. Maybe you even knew who the templar was.”

“I think I do recall something about that.” Cullen’s voice was very, very somber. “I remember reading the report in the Knight-Commander’s correspondence. A scribe took down the account from your clan’s courier and passed it along.” He nods to himself, remembering, and his hands come to rest on the pommel of his sword. His next words are gentler, softly spoken. “Was she someone you knew? A friend?”

Aria’s legs feel like they’ve turned to water. Her heart pounds underneath her breastbone. She bites down hard on her lip to keep the stinging in her eyes at bay, but when she shakes her head and murmurs a pitiful, warbling “No,” she feels her face screw up. She can feel her cheeks burning in frustration and her hands are wringing themselves through the sudden, hot wave of anger. When she glances back over to Cullen she feels ashamed.

She sees it in his eyes, the moment he puts it all together. The realization washes over his expression like a high tide. “It was you,” he breathes, brows drawn tightly together. “You were the girl,” and she nods, eyes shut tight against her tears. “Oh, Maker, Aria.”

“I didn’t want anyone to know,” she says, voice verging on shrill. “The last thing I need is for this to become common knowledge.”

“Maker’s breath, it makes sense now. Going to the mages instead of the templars, and, Andraste’s ashes, there have been templars in the hold this entire time—“

“Cullen.”

“That day, in the chantry. You looked so _scared_ , I should have—“

“Cullen, please.” The softness of her voice breaks him from his thoughts. Somewhere amidst his rambling, she’d come around the table and to his side. His hand reaches out to touch her, but he stops himself, fingers in mid stretch towards her shoulder. He looks very, very sad.

“I’m so sorry, Aria.”

“Please,” she says again, throat working against the tightness in her voice. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just need your help.”

“Anything.” Cullen shifts from one foot to the other, eyes trained down at her feet. “Anything at all. You need only name it.”

“Do you have any idea who he was?”

“ _Yes_.”

His answer is quick, and it surprises her a little. Disgust creeps into his face, wrinkling his nose and creasing his forehead. Aria feels her breath still in her chest as she waits for his next words.

“In the gallows, there was a templar named Jarryn who had a… _reputation_ with the young elven women.”

“Reputation?”

“There were complaints.” He begins to pace towards the other end of the war table. His fingers nudge at an Inquisition marker, gently scuttling it a little to the left. “Some of the senior enchanters claimed he stared a little too long, followed the girls too closely. One said he had groped her. Meredith had declared the reports not worth investigating. Things of that nature were not uncommon in the gallows. It was his duty as a templar, she’d said, that he keep a watchful eye and take whatever measures he deemed necessary to keep order. This went on for a number of months. Those in the chain of command faced with the complaints waved them off as exaggerations or simply ignored them. But then girls started coming forward.”

Aria watched his adam’s apple bob in his throat when he swallowed.

“I suppose that, over time, things… escalated. Word got to first enchanter Orsino that two of the girls had come forward, claiming that Jarryn had raped them. Both young, both elves, and both with long, blonde hair.”

He must have noticed the loss of color in Aria’s face, because he pauses for a moment, watching her closely. Nausea curls in her stomach at the words _long, blonde hair_. She can almost feel his fingers curling brutally against her scalp.

“He stormed into Meredith’s office, demanded she do something about it. It was far from the first time a templar had taken advantage of one of the mages, but at that point things were growing more and more tense between the knight-commander and the first enchanter. I think Meredith surprised us all when she said that yes, she would do something about it. That satisfied Orsino and he dropped the issue, convinced it would be dealt with.”

“Did she stop him?” Aria asked quietly. “What happened? Was he thrown out of the order?”

“No. She had both of the apprentices made tranquil.”

Aria’s jaw drops in shock, and she gapes at him. “Made tranquil?” Of course she did. Making them tranquil kept the matter quiet. It set an example for any other girls who thought about coming forward. _This will happen to you if you think about saying anything_.

“A few of the knights, including myself, tried to convince her otherwise but Meredith would not be swayed. Needless to say, no other young women ever spoke up again.”

“And what happened to him?” she demanded.

“Meredith said that reprimanding Jarryn would be admitting to the mages he was in the wrong. She summoned him to her office and yelled at him that the next time it happened his pay would be docked, but otherwise nothing.”

“So, what, nothing changed? They still let him patrol the gallows, free to prey on more young girls? Free to corner me in the woods, tie me to a tree and rape me?”

“Aria—“

“What happened?” She is still shaking, but the fear was replaced with rage. “Tell me what happened to him, after those girls were made tranquil.”

He was stunned in the face of her anger, and it takes him a moment to find his voice again. “A few months passed. At some point, your clan’s scribe brought the message about the girl in the forest, and Meredith had it burned with the rest of the kindling. Then word started to spread that an apprentice had fallen with child. She’d tried to keep it a secret, but something like that can only be hidden for so long. When Meredith found out, she had the girl but in solitary confinement to wait until the child was born, and then she was to be made tranquil. Jarryn was transferred, and that was the last anyone heard of the matter.”

“What about the child?”

Silence. For a moment, Aria thinks he isn’t going to tell her. “It was never born. She killed herself in her cell.”

Aria starts to cry. She covers her face with her hands and her shoulders shudder in time with her gasping breaths. She can feel her body crumpling in on itself, her knees starting to give way, but then Cullen is there, holding her up by her arms. She leans into him, balling her hands in his fur pauldrons.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, the sound nearly drowned out by her tears.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” she cried. “Why didn’t any of you stop him?”

“I…” Caught off guard, Cullen struggles for something to say. “It was out of my hands, Aria, there was nothing I could do.”

“Yes there was!”

Her small fists push against his chest, and he stumbles back to keep from falling. He gapes at her, confused.

“You could have changed Meredith’s mind! Had him sent away! You could have threatened him, kept him away from those girls, protected them! Anything!” She pauses for a moment to take a deep breathe. “But you didn’t. You let him continue, all of you, and did nothing to stop him. Maybe if one of you had done something I would never have been raped in those woods!”

That resonates with him. He can see it in the way his eyes change, turning hollow and pained. “How many other girls were there, Cullen? How many other girls could he have done this to, knowing that no one would do anything to stop him?”

He stares at her, lips tensed and eyes hard. Ashamed. “I don’t know.”

“No one knows. And no one ever will.” She wipes at the tears on her cheeks and sniffs loudly. “The only thing I can think of worse than being raped is knowing that there are others out there, countless others who suffered the same thing I did, at the hands of the same man. And now one of them is dead, and two others made tranquil.”

“I’m sorry,” Cullen murmurs, voice croaky. “Things were… very different then. I was very different. If I could go back and change things, I would—“

“Apologies and hindsight won’t fix anything.” Her voice is hard, and she hates herself for it. “Just… find him.”

Aria leaves him standing in the war room. She hides her puffy, red eyes from Josephine when she walks through her office, avoids any curious nobles lingering in the great hall. In her quarters, she tries to look through more plans for the new infirmary, but before long she’s crying again, tears dotting the parchment of the blueprints. Rowan, who had been asleep on his perch behind her chair, flittered soundlessly to her desk. Aria buries her face into the soft feathers of his head, simultaneously weeping and dotting his plumage with kisses.

It is a long time before she moves from her desk. Eventually, she manages to undress and drag herself into bed, sending away the servant who had brought up her evening meal. She remains in bed for the rest of the night, but Aria does not sleep a wink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com)!


	28. A Cup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonjour! Still in France and still loving every minute. Thanks for your comments, it's good to be back, and please continue to leave me your thoughts!

In the morning, when Aria wakes, she is brought a gold-leafed, perfumed invitation to tea with Vivienne in the courtyard that afternoon. She dresses, cleans her teeth, washes her face. The rest of her morning is spent answering letters, mostly pertaining to Sebastian Vael’s occupation of Kirkwall, and by the time she is finished her hand is cramped from writing and she is nearly late to afternoon tea with Madame de Fer.

Vivienne has had the chess table relocated and the pavilion has been furnished with a painted Orlesian table and spindly, delicate chairs to match. Vivienne herself reclines regally in one, her cup and saucer poised in her elegant hands. Atop a lacy white tablecloth lie all the provisions for a luxurious afternoon tea. A small tower of alternating platters of tiny sandwiches and dainty pastries has been placed in the middle of the table. To one side sits a glittering silver tea set, joined by a similar copper pot Aria suspects contains hot chocolate, something she’s learned is customary of Orlesian teas.

“Inquisitor,” Vivienne greets her coolly, setting down her cup and saucer.

“Good afternoon, Madame Vivienne.” Aria takes her seat opposite the first enchanter, and at once Josephine’s etiquette lessons take control. Almost subconsciously, she folds her hands on top of the table and sits with her back straight and rigid. The subtle glint of approval in Vivienne’s eyes is reassuring.

“Thank you for joining me. The weather was so beautiful today I thought it would be a waste to stay indoors.” She watches as the older woman pours her tea, using a small pair of tongs to drop two lumps of sugar into it, the way Aria likes. She thanks Vivienne quietly and accepts the cup as it is handed to her.

“I appreciate the invitation.” She stirs in the sugar and is so focused on watching it dissolve that she hardly notices the second plate Vivienne places in front of her. On it sit two of the small cucumber sandwiches and a rich chocolate éclair.

“Are you feeling well, darling?” Aria meets Vivienne’s observing stare with wide eyes. “You look nothing short of exhausted.”

“I feel fine.” She flashes her a smile she hopes is convincing, but she can tell by Vivienne’s expression that she hasn’t succeeded in the least. “Honestly, I am. Last night I just had difficulty falling asleep. Rowan, my owl, kept coming in and out—“

“Has anyone ever told you how that your eyebrows raise ever so slightly when you lie?”

That catches Aria so off guard she loses her train of thought. Her eyes fall guiltily to her teacup and she gives a tiny, nervous laugh. “That must be why Sera always beats me at cards.”

Vivienne scoffs. “Nonsense, darling, Sera’s attention to fine details is almost null. Sera beats you at cards because she cheats.” Vivienne’s cup finds its saucer with a barely audible _clink_ and she leaves her hands clasped daintily on the tablecloth. “The truth now, if you please.”

“I…” Suddenly Aria feels like she is a child again, and Deshanna caught playing in the river with her friends when she was supposed to be studying. “Well…”

All at once, the full impact of the previous day’s events seems to crush her. The recent crying and lack of sleep leave a dull ache behind her eyes. She is reminded by the gnawing pain in her stomach that it has been nearly two days since her last meal. Ignoring her etiquette lessons, she lets her shoulders sag, and she braces her elbows on the table so that her head falls into her hands. Aria lets out a tired, quivering sigh and if she was capable of anymore tears she might have wept, but as it is all she can muster is a dry, pathetic half-sob.

She tells Vivienne about her talk with Cassandra in the desert, and then about what she had asked Cullen. She tells her about what happened in the gallows, about Ser Jarryn, about the two girls who were made tranquil and the girl who killed herself in a cell. She tells her what she’d said to Cullen, how she’d blamed him and said it was his fault, and that of the templar order, that those girls had been raped. That _she_ had been raped.

Vivienne listens to everything she has to say. She lets Aria talk, and when she is finished and shaking where she sits, Madame de Fer leans forward to place her hand on top of Aria’s. It is comforting and smooth to the touch, and somehow Aria finds the contact extremely calming. She expects to be told she is overreacting, that it was unfair to blame Cullen for someone else’s actions, and the tips of her ears begin to burn in embarrassment.

“I agree with you.”

That shocks her.

“You do?”

“Yes.” Vivienne pushes her empty teacup away. “A templar’s _duty_ is to protect the innocent. Enabling a known abuser of young girls is not protecting the innocent. Tell me, my dear, how much do you know of what transpired in Kinloch Hold ten years ago?”

“Very little, I’m afraid.”

“It was one of the most gruesome disasters in Circle History. Templars and mages alike, tortured and slaughtered by blood mages. Nearly all but a handful of its members butchered and possessed by demons. Abominations lurked the halls in droves. The Knight-Commander had wanted to call for the rite of annulment, the execution of every mage in the tower. If the Hero of Fereldan had not arrived, they very likely would have.”

Aria swallows thickly, the taste of her tea growing stale in her mouth. “And Cullen was there?”

“The commander was one of the few people to walk out of that tower alive.” Vivienne pauses for a moment, and the gravity of the statement sinks in for Aria. “I have no knowledge of what happened to him, or what he saw in that tower. I’m not sure I want to know. You and I will never be able to understand the scars something like that leaves a person with. But I have no doubt that the commander came face to face with the darkest side of magic there is.”

“Well then I don’t understand.” Aria shakes her head. “Kirkwall was rumored to be overrun with blood magic. Why would he go there?”

“Say what you will, the commander is nothing if not dedicated. Perhaps he thought Kirkwall was where he could do the most good.”

“Is that what templars do?” Aria scoffs. “They do _good_? Was the man who raped me doing it for the good of the people? Was Meredith doing good when she had two apprentices made tranquil for admitting that he had raped them too? Were the templars in Kirkwall who let a young girl die alone in a cell doing it because it was the good thing to do?”

Vivienne’s face piques in what Aria recognizes as mild annoyance. She clears her throat and blots delicately at her lips with a napkin. “I am not making excuses for anyone, my darling. I am simply giving you facts and situations so that you might draw your own conclusions as to why things happened the way they did. Meredith was a madwoman, but she was the Knight-Commander. Soldiers are taught to follow orders, and it is the same with templars. Disobeying a direct command means expulsion from the order.”

“It doesn’t matter. Someone should have stopped it.”

Vivienne nods sadly. “Yes. They should have. Sadly, these things happen all the time, in every circle, and few rarely do stop it. But you have to understand, this was years ago. It is entirely possible that yes, the commander is a different person. I’m not saying you should forgive anyone. No one has _any_ right to ask for your forgiveness, darling. But, if he is truly remorseful, give him a chance to atone.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, and Aria considers what she’s heard. She makes to get up, but Vivienne tuts her and throws a glance at her untouched plate.

“Oh,” Aria murmurs.

“Please eat something, my dear. You look as though you might blow away with the wind at any moment now.”

Nervously, Aria picks up one of the sandwiches. She nibbles at it while Vivienne pours her a cup of the hot chocolate to replace her cold tea.

_  
_

\--

_  
_

Cullen’s office is dark, save for the early evening sunlight beaming from the windows, and Aria opens the door as soundlessly as she can. He sits at his desk, head down and resting on his folded arms. His mantle and armor both sit on the armor stand, leaving him in his shirtsleeves. He doesn’t move as she steps closer, and Aria thinks he might be asleep. Quietly, she slides away papers and books to clear herself a place to sit. Her leg brushes his elbow and he raises his head with a short gasp, eyes wide and panicked until he finds her face.

“Aria,” he breathes.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you were sleeping.”

“No, no, I just…” His eyes slide shut and he raises a hand to rub at his temple none too gently. A thin layer of sweat gives his skin a clammy sheen. “I have this damned _headache_. I felt it coming earlier, when I was doing paperwork and… I thought I could just take a few minutes.”

“How bad is it?” she asks, keeping her voice low.

“I had to put out the candles. The light makes it worse.”

Aria nods. She gets up from the desk to open the door to the battlements. A group of soldiers and scouts is milling about outside, so she asks if one of them could fetch them some elfroot tea with chamomile. They give her a short salute and she closes the door to sit back down at the desk.

“Here.”

He looks surprised when she reaches out to touch his face, slowly stroking her palm along the curve of his temple. Cullen’s eyes flutter a bit at how cool her fingers feel on his skin and unconsciously leans into her touch. Aria scoots until she’s sitting in front of him and gently uses her other hand to steer his head into the cushion of her lap. Her fingers curl through his barely tamed hair, nails lightly scratching at his scalp. Cullen gives an audible groan of relief. Hesitantly, one of his hands comes to rest on her knee, but he quickly moves it back to the desk.

“Cullen, you can touch me. I’m not going to shatter.”

It takes a moment, as though he’s gathering the confidence, but eventually he does wrap his arms around both of her calves. Aria lets out a small, content hum. They sit like that for quite a while, Cullen’s thumbs stroking at her ankles and Aria’s fingers massaging his scalp.

“I feel foolish,” he murmurs.

Aria continues the motion of her hands. “Why do you say that?”

“I should be the one to comfort you.”

For a moment, she’s at a loss for words. “I don’t need to be comforted,” she says at last. “I’ve had five years to live with this, Cullen, and I’m tired of being comforted. I’m tired of people coddling me. I don’t want sympathy; I want justice.”

“Then you’ll have it.” She feels his jaw clench as he grits his teeth. “I promise you, Aria, you’ll have it. I’ve given Leliana his name; she’ll take care of it. We’ll find him and he’ll answer for all the pain he’s caused.”

She shushes him quietly, willing him to relax. Cullen’s arms leave her legs to wrap around her torso, and he leans forward to rest his ear against the soft plane of her belly. Her breath catches in her throat a tiny bit. It’s the most intimate position they’ve ever been in together, and while her heart beats anxiously, her stomach flutters with the thrill of being so close. His breath is warm through the fabric of her shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His arms tighten around her just a little. “You were right. I should have done something. _Someone_ should have done something. I was… So blind then, so ignorant, and I hate myself for it. Maker, I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” she tells him, because that’s all she can say. She doesn’t tell him it’s all right because it’s not all right, it will never be all right. She can’t tell him she forgives him because she’s not sure she can forgive anyone. But she does believe him when he says he is sorry.

Silence hangs in the air. For a while, they are satisfied to sit with each other there in the dim light of the darkened office. One of Aria’s hands leaves Cullen’s hair to trace the shell of his ear. He shudders at the sensation. His hands move to grasp at her sides.

“Each time I see you I swear you’ve grown thinner.”

Aria blanches. “You think so?”

“I know so, Aria.” He takes one of her hands, gives her palm a short, warm kiss, and then examines it. Aria hadn’t paid much attention until that moment just how bony her fingers looked. Cullen doesn’t comment on it, but she knows he notices. “Are you eating?”

“I’ve… not been hungry,” she lies. She can’t tell if he believes her. “The past few weeks have been very stressful.”

“I understand.” She drags her fingers along the angle of his jaw, transfixed by the stubble she finds there. She draws the pad of her finger over the length of his scar and thinks she would like to kiss him there “I’ll make you a deal,” he says.

“A deal?”

“Have dinner with me every night this week, and I’ll help you in your herb garden.”

That makes her laugh a little bit. The herb garden had turned into a chore for most of Skyhold, but Aria was always up for kneeling in the earth and getting her hands on the plants. Occasionally she could rope one of her companions into helping, but usually whenever she asked people suddenly became very busy with other things. All except for Cole, who was happy to be of any help to anyone at any time. He spent more time admiring the butterflies or the flowers than he did actually tending to the plants, but Aria never minded. She liked the company.

“I’m not quite sure you know what you’re getting yourself into, commander,” she jokes.

“I have heard tales, but nevertheless I think I can handle a little weed-pulling.”

“Sure. A little weed-pulling.” He truly didn’t understand.

“So. Do we have a deal?”

“All right. A deal then.” She holds out her hand. “Now we have to shake on it.”

Cullen nods against her thigh and shakes her hand, bringing her fingers close for a moment to land a kiss on the backs of her knuckles.

There is a knock on the door, and a maid brings in a tray of tea. Aria has a cup with Cullen, appreciating the warmth even though the bitter taste of elfroot leaves her tongue in recoil. It doesn’t do much to soothe the aching empty feeling in her stomach, but the warmth curls in her insides and takes the edge off.

She urges him to drink two more cups, and halfway through the third his headache starts to wane. He promises her he will go to bed soon after, and she promises to meet him for dinner the next day. Then she leans up on her toes and kisses him, soft and sweet, and he has to bend his neck to meet her. His hands splay over her back, easily spanning the distance between her shoulder blades and the curve of her spine. In a brief moment of daring, she parts her lips against his and darts her tongue out to taste him. She hears him swallow a surprised sound, but before he has time to react Aria pulls away. She throws a quick goodnight over her shoulder, cheeks burning as she heads for the door, and Cullen is so stunned he can’t even manage to return the sentiment.

That night as she lies in bed, her heart races and her legs feel like jelly. She falls asleep with her fingers brushing at her lips and the taste of chamomile on her tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com)!


	29. A Poem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm so, so sorry I haven't updated in a while. Things have been very busy! Classes have started again, I have a job, I have to start thinking about a **career** now. Thanks for tuning in anyway even though I've been gone for so long.
> 
> So, the next two chapters were supposed to be one, but it ran so long I made it two. So, yes, this one is short but the next should be up soon. Leave a comment and tell me what you thought!

Aria is not ignorant to sex.

And not for the obvious reasons. Being raped did nothing to familiarize her with sex, contrary to what most people privy to that knowledge thought. It had only made her more confused. It was that much harder to understand why other women enjoyed it. Surely if sex was anything like what she had experienced, no one would ever willingly agree to it. She remembers her conversation with Dorian on that late night in front of her fireplace, how sad he had looked, desperate for her to know that it was _nothing like that_. She was starting to believe more and more that what had been done to her in the woods and the actual act of having sex, making love to someone, had to be two different things.

She knows how it works, obviously. It is the finer details that are lost on her. What one says to a lover and when to say it, how to touch someone for pleasure, how to act before taking someone into your bed and then how to behave after. These things no one had ever told her. Of course, when she’d bled for the first time, Deshanna had explained to her how children were made and what would happen to her body as she grew older, but this was not the same. No one had ever told her what to expect of a lover, or how to be one.

The first thing she does is ask Cassandra for her books. Oh, how the seeker had blushed. Her eyes go round as dinner plates in embarrassment and her words fumble over one another when she asks _what in the world does she want those for_? Aria flushes a little bit herself when she explains that she is simply curious and in need of a more interesting read in between formal letters and missives. Cassandra hesitates for only a few moments, then bids Aria to follow her up to her quarters above the smithy. There they spend the better part of an hour rifling through Cassandra’s small, smutty library of trash novels and collection of romantic poetry. Aria is given a stack of about four or five books with garishly decorated covers. Just before she turns to leave, Cassandra stops her, a little, almost pocket-sized book tentatively held out to place it on top of the others. “That one is my favorite,” she says breathily, and Aria smiles at her. She assures Cassandra of her appreciation and promises to take care of them. Then, eyes darting cautiously around the courtyard, she quickly makes her way back to her quarters with her spoils.

She reads them one by one, by candlelight in her bed. The first few, at best, make her giggle or roll her eyes and at worst leave her blushing in embarrassment and a little ashamed. Some of the scenes were so _lewd_ that she is sure that has to be their only appeal. That they are so bad you can’t help but keep reading. There are a lot of rugged, calloused hands and heaving bosoms. She saves the small one for last, Cassandra’s favorite. It is a book of free form poetry, and when Aria opens it in her lap, it naturally falls on a page towards the end. Obviously this particular poem has been visited a lot. So she nestles into her quilts and curls in to read it. Minutes later, the quilts have been tossed aside and she is sitting straight up, cheeks ablaze and breath puffing shallow and uneven between her fingers. The hand holding the book is shaking. After she turns the last page, she quickly snaps the book shut and leans over to blow out the candle. Aria flops back on to her pillows, the cool sheets doing little to soothe her overheated body.

She gives them all back to Cassandra the next morning. Upon handing over the book of poetry, she tries to think of something to say, but all she can come up with is a knowing, tightlipped nod before she barks out a word of thanks and makes a hasty retreat.

She thinks about Cullen. The strength of his arms, and how warm they feel tight around her shoulders. The kiss he’d landed on her nose earlier that morning, and his breathy chuckle at the way her face scrunched up. How his eyes softened whenever they landed on her. The trail a bead of sweat had left along his throat, down into the open collar of his shirt as he’d helped her plant seeds in the herb garden. She wonders what it would taste like if she’d followed its path with her tongue.

She decides later that night, bottom lip caught between her teeth and a hand trembling below her bellybutton, that she wants what was in that poem, and she wants it with Cullen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com)!


	30. A Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I split these chapters up even more. Whoops! They were just so long it was ridiculous.
> 
> I hope you guys like this one. Leave me a comment!

Sometime not long after dinner in the great hall, Aria has a bath drawn up in her quarters.

Lots of thankful Orlesian nobles make for lots of luxurious gifts, and her collection of bath oils and soaps has grown three fold. She takes her time in deciding which one to use. She considers lavender, or maybe rose, but in the end she decides on delicate jasmine scented oil, and the steam from the hot water helps it permeate the air in the room. The soap she uses is made from honey. The rich lather melts from her hair when she rinses, leaving bubbles swirling around her shoulders and knees, clinging to her calves as she steps out.

She frets over her hair at her vanity, combing it into shape around her face before it can completely dry. The jasmine oil leaves her skin soft and sweet smelling. The scent clings to her clothes as she dresses and follows her down the stairs, through the great hall and into the empty rotunda. Quietly, she opens the heavy wooden door that leads to the catwalk to find that the moon is already out. She counts her breaths as she crosses over to Cullen’s office and silently slips inside.

They are due to march on the Arbor Wilds in two weeks’ time. The room is filled with soldiers, and in the middle Cullen leans over a map, moving pieces into place and dictating to his officers. Aria leans back against the wall, hands clasped coyly behind her back. She must have walked in close to the end of the meeting, because soon papers start to shuffle and people start murmuring. Cullen catches her eye. As he sees his troops out with a few parting words, Aria wanders over to his desk. She absentmindedly looks through a few of the papers there, not really reading them, turning around when she hears the door shut. Cullen breathes out a tired sigh, head resting back on the aged wood. He gives her a lazy smile.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” she parrots. He comes closer, gathering up documents to put away.

“Tactics meeting,” he says. “Probably not very interesting to listen to.”

“I don’t mind.” She watches as he straightens up, tucking books back into the shelf, shoving maps back into drawers. When he finishes he leans over the side of the desk to kiss her cheek. “It was lonely in the herb garden without you,” she tells him, and it makes him laugh. “There was no one to drag me away from my Orlesian lessons this afternoon.”

“Forgive me,” he murmurs against her temple, pressing a smile into her skin. “I was gifted a rather formidable stack of field reports by Leliana this morning.”

“Exciting.”

“Yes. Very.” His hand reaches for hers, lacing their fingers together when he finds it. “You look well.”

She feels well. The past few weeks have been good to her. She eats regularly again, and the sunshine in the garden has done much to lift her spirits. She nods, fiddling at the tunic over his breastplate.

“I confess, as delighted as I am to see you it seems I am ill prepared for a game of chess. If that was what you had in mind.”

Aria shakes her head. Slowly, she rises up on her toes and pulls him down by his tunic so she can place a feather light kiss to the corner of his mouth. She can hear his breath as it catches in his throat. “I wasn’t thinking about chess.”

“No,” he whispers. Cullen leans forward, one arm braced on the desk and the other moving to wrap around the small of her back. “No, a little too late for chess perhaps.”

She hums in agreement. He kisses her. Sweet and gentle, like she knew he would be, and it almost makes her dizzy. She pulls away for a split second, forehead bumping against his, and then leans in to kiss him again. And again, and again. Fingers trembling, she slides her hands up his neck to either side of his jaw and opens her mouth to him.

Aria feels more than hears the quiet, breathy groan that gets her. Cullen responds in kind, and she tastes him, cinnamon and apples and wine from dinner. Her heart is hammering at her breastbone like it wants out. Her knees feel weak so she leans back against the desk, pulling him back with her and suddenly she’s being lifted up, his hands underneath her thighs so he can seat her there on the desk and move in close between her legs. Even through the armor she can feel how warm he is. Something behind them falls to the floor and shatters, and she gasps into his mouth. The sudden lapse in concentration breaks him away from her, and she sighs, disappointed.

“Aria,” he murmurs at the hinge of her jaw, breath coming hard and fast. She ducks to find his lips again but he moves away at the last second. She gets his bottom lip instead. It does little to discourage her, just gives her the opportunity to lower her head and brush her tongue against the stubble over his pulse. It wrings a nearly silent gasp from him and he leans back to get two fingers under her chin, urging her to look him in the eye. “Aria, please.”

“Yes?”

“I need you—“ He takes a slow breath and squeezes his eyes shut. “I need you to tell me what you want. What you would have of me.”

“Make love to me.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. “You’re sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“We don’t have to. Don’t say yes because you think you have to.”

“Cullen, _please._ ” She presses her lips to his again for just a moment. “I’m saying yes. I’m not a child. I want this, I want _you_ , and I’m asking you to make love to me. Please, please don’t try to change my mind.”

“I—” He swallows. Takes a deep breath. Nods. “I’m sorry. I just… The last thing I want to do is cause you pain—“

“You won’t.”

“Promise me that if there’s anything, anything at all.” He looks at her face, searching for something she knows he isn’t going to find. His hand comes up to card through the silver blonde of her hair. “If you need something, if we need to stop just say it. Promise me you’ll tell me if something’s not right.”

She nods. “I will. I promise.”

Cullen leans forward to kiss her once on the temple, once between her brows and then one last time on the crown of her head. He breathes in her honey-scented soap. “I, uh.” He gives her a small smile. “I’ll need to put my armor up for the night.”

“Oh.”

“My bedroom is just up the ladder.” He nods his head in that direction. “If you’d like, you can go ahead and climb up. I’ll only be a moment.”

Aria steals one more kiss from him. She feels his eyes on her all the way to the ladder and she climbs up as quickly as she can with her sweaty palms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com)!


	31. A Bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Here it is. I'm very nervous and embarrassed to post this, since it's been a long time since I've written a scene like this and it took forever to get done. Obviously this chapter contains some explicit sexual content, and if you feel more comfortable to skip it that's totally fine. It won't have any bearing on what comes in later chapters.
> 
> Please leave any feedback or thoughts you have in the comments!

The loft is quiet. Moonlight filters in from the gaping hole in the roof, accompanied by a soft spring breeze that rustles the leaves of the invading tree branches. Her footsteps creak out over the floorboards as she crosses the room. There is a bed off to one side, and next to it a chair and a crude end table. Against the other wall is a standing basin and a wooden chest. An eerie peace seems to blanket the space, and it compels her to move slowly and softly.

Aria is at a loss for what to do. She wrings her hands together, for fear that unoccupied they will shake so hard the bones come loose. There is a wild fluttering in her stomach that leaves her a little short of breath, and her heartbeat hammers in her throat like a drum. The sounds of clinking armor and shuffling furniture reach her ears from below. Desperate for something to occupy herself with lest she work herself into a panic, she sits on the bed to remove her boots and stockings. She places them on the floor by the chair. Nervously, she thinks of the rest of her clothing. Her hands tremble at the hook and eye catches on her shirt as she quickly removes that as well. Then come her breeches and cotton camisole, her breast band and underthings until she’s completely naked, her clothes folded neatly in the chair.

She’s never considered herself to be self-conscious of her body until that moment. Looking down at her torso, her legs and her feet, Aria frets. She doesn’t know if Cullen’s ever been with an elf before. What if he had only ever known human women, taller and softer with curves? What if he thought she was too skinny, too pale or her frame too slight? Her hands come up to clasp over her heart, arms crossed over her breasts. What if he changed his mind?

Footsteps up the ladder break her out of her thoughts and she turns around where she stands, anxious and exhilarated all at once. She holds her breath as she watches Cullen step up on to the floor. He’s clad in only a long, white shirt and a pair of linen leggings, a single lit candle held in his hand. He cups his fingers around the top to protect the flame. He takes a few steps towards the bed, then his eyes tear away from the light for a moment and that’s when catches sight of her.

It stops him in his tracks. An audible huff of air leaves his lungs, like the breath has been knocked out of him. Aria can feel the tips of her ears turning pink. She still covers herself protectively, as if by instinct, but something prickles up her spine at the unmistakable _reverence_ in his eyes. Like she’s something precious and sacred, and she’ll disappear into thin air if he dares to look away.

“Oh, blessed Andraste,” she hears him whisper, and she bites her lip.

“I…” She struggles for words, desperate to say something. He comes closer. “I didn’t know if, um, it would be better to undress before you came up, or…” Her words trail off, and she would have felt like an utter fool if it weren’t for the understanding smile he throws her way. He places the candle on the table, then pads his way over to sit at the edge of the bed. Aria looks at him sheepishly, fighting the urge to fidget.

“Hello,” she murmurs. He chuckles.

“Hello there.”

Slowly, timidly, Aria comes closer, until they’re only inches apart. It takes no small amount of courage for her to lower her hands from where they lie clasped at her breastbone so that she finally stands bare before him. He lifts a hand to cover his mouth, brows knitted as though he were deep in thought.

“Maker, you are so beautiful.”

Her breath stills in her lungs.

Cullen’s fingers stretch toward one of her hands. “May I touch you?” he nearly whispers, eyes locked with hers, and she nods her head yes.

He pulls her knuckles to his lips, bidding her to come closer as he makes room for her between his knees. She sighs as his hands settle into the curve of her waist. He is so warm she can scarcely believe it. Tenderly, he leans forward to press a dry, chaste kiss just over her navel. For a moment she’s scared he can hear just how fast her heart is beating. His fingers skate over her ribs so lightly it tickles, and she jerks involuntarily. He smiles at her, clearly delighted.

“Sorry.” Cullen chuckles against her skin. He kisses her belly one, two, three more times. The warmth of his lips is so pleasant she doesn’t even notice his hands trailing up her body until they lie just below her breasts and suddenly she’s hyper aware of every point of contact they share. His thumbs graze over her nipples and she sucks in gasp. He watches her face, sees the way her lashes flutter closed, and does it again. Once more and she _moans_ , toes curling into the floorboards, and Cullen rushes to stand up and kiss her before the sound leaves her lips entirely.

Aria relishes the chance to touch him again. His lips trail from her mouth, down the curve of her jaw until they find her neck. He kisses her there again and again, mouth open to taste her in each one. Her hands fist in his shirt.

“Take this off,” she murmurs. She slides one hand underneath it and his muscles jump under her fingers. “Please.”

He nods and Aria is all too eager to help him lift it up past his head and over his shoulders. Her eyes light up at the sight of him. He is all pale skin and corded muscle, blood hot everywhere she touches him. There’s a dusting of fine golden hairs over his chest. A thin line trails further below the laces of his leggings. Aria follows it with her fingers, over his sternum and the slope of his abdominals. When she skims over his bellybutton and further down, Cullen groans and buries his face into the slope of her neck, breath hot and damp there.

There are a number of scars mapping his skin like landmarks and she wishes she had the patience and the time to run her tongue over each one. The most noticeable is a mottled pink burn scar that covers most of his left side. He flinches when she touches it, and she makes up her mind to leave it alone for now.

There is love and tenderness in the way Cullen touches her, and it feels like she could burst with it. Every kiss, every gasp leaves her shaking. There’s still apprehension in the way she moves and she thinks he knows, so he holds her close and whispers over and over again how beautiful she is. Aria wants to swallow each word, pluck them from his tongue and keep them forever, let them pile up in her chest until she starts to believe him.

When he takes a step forward she moves with him. The back of one knee hits the edge of the mattress and Aria stiffens. Cullen must notice because he cups her face in his hands and kisses the tip of her nose. Tries to ground her, reassuring her that she’s safe, she’s loved, and she can trust him. It helps, and when she falls back on the quilts he waits, waits for her to lie back against his pillows, only following when she reaches for him. He’s there in a heartbeat, lowering himself on his elbows until their bellies touch. Aria rests her a palm on his chest to feel for his heartbeat. When she finds it Cullen places his hand over hers, leans in to kiss her breathless.

He leaves her lips to ghost over the point of her chin, down the curve of her neck and into the slope of her shoulder. The kisses cool on her skin, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. He spends a few seconds at the hollow between her collarbones then slowly, slowly inches downward. Aria shudders, anticipating the next press of lips on her skin. When his mouth closes over her breast she bites her lip on a moan, dragging a hand up his scalp to curl her fingers in his hair. Her other clutches at the pillow under her head. With a brush of his tongue he has her squirming under him, thighs clenched together and lips parted on a gasp. His hand finds her other breast to circle his finger around her nipple and it makes her _sob_.

It’s like being tortured she thinks, only if he stops she think she might actually go mad. His mouth drifts from one breast to the other, kissing, suckling, drawing desperate sounds from her lips. Her legs fall open and one of his muscled thighs finds its way between them. When his lips leave her skin, she gives a forlorn sound but it’s cut short at the sight of his head moving further down her torso. Cullen noses his way down the split of her ribcage and over the soft, flat plane of her belly. When he reaches her navel his tongue traces a hot circle around it and she fights so hard not to giggle at the way it tickles. He goes lower still, a rasp of teeth over the wing of her hipbone, damp kisses in the crease of her thigh, and then his fingers find the back of one knee. Aria bites down on her knuckles. He’s so close, breath ghosting over her sex, and he dips down—

_Honey and clotted cream—_

“No!”

She bolts upright. Her knees come up defensively, narrowly missing his chin, and she clambers back against the pillows. Cullen pulls his hands away and sits back, arms raised in a show of deference. Aria hides her face in her hands, ashamed and frightened as she gulps in deep breaths of air. The corners of her eyes start to prickle and she will not, _refuses_ to cry.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen tells her. She shakes her head violently from side to side.

“No, it’s not you, I just…” Her nails dig into her skin. “I didn’t know. It snuck up on me. I don’t—you were wonderful and it was _so_ good, and then it just…”

“Are you all right?” His voice is so soft and concerned; she can’t bring herself to look at him. “Should we stop?”

“No, please.” Tears under control, she lowers her hands and looks him sincerely in the eyes. “I want to do this. I just need a moment, and then…”

“We can take as long as you like.”

“Everything was perfect.” She sighs. “It was. I just… Not that. Not now.”

Aria breathes. She waits for her heart to calm, as much as it is able. The frenzy in her head starts to wane. Cullen’s gaze stays trained on her toes, curled as they are in the sheets. She wiggles them. His eyes crinkle with the tiny smile that quirks his lips. Gradually the tension in her limbs starts to decompress, the walls she’d thrown up thinning in the night air. Aria tucks her knees under, moves so that they’re close again. She drags her fingers up over Cullen’s shoulders, pleased with the full body shudder she gets in return.

“Could I touch you?” she asks, and Cullen chuckles.

“Yes,” he says, a little eagerly. It makes her smile.

She kneels in front of him, back straight so she sits tall enough to look him in the eye. He leans forward to kiss her, but at the last minute she moves away so that his lips fall at her neck. Instead, she feels her way down his jaw, the pads of her fingers scraping over the stubble with every inch. She skates over the knob in his throat, feels it bob as he swallows around a hard breath. Fascinated, Aria ducks to taste him there. She can hear him sigh, wonders if his eyes have fallen shut. Her tongue leaves behind a wet trail to the ridge of his collarbone. One of his hands comes up to cradle the back of her skull.

She bites down.

Not very hard, but Cullen’s entire body jerks and a strangled, choked groan sounds in his chest. The fingers at her nape tremble, so she does it again, biting with a little more pressure. A hiss slips between his teeth and his head drops to her shoulder. Past his collarbones, she rests her lips over his sternum, planting a long, tender kiss over his heart. He stiffens when one of her fingertips brush along a nipple, and she tucks the reaction away in her memory for later. For now, she grows bold as her hands slip farther and farther down his abdomen.

Aria scratches lightly at the trail of hair resting above his waistband. It makes him shiver, so she does it again. She fiddles with the laces of his breeches without any real intent to untie them. Lower still, she sees the outline of him through the cling of the fabric, caught against his inner thigh. She has no real experience in the bodies of men, but he certainly seems impressive. Hesitantly, she lays her palm against the length of him.

“Maker, _Aria_.”

Her name leaves his lips in a low, reedy plea and she loves it. She strokes her thumb against him, lost in how warm he feels and the way he absolutely comes undone under her hand. His hips chase her touch when she moves away to take his face between her hands and kiss him. Cullen kisses her like he’s dying, blood burning under his skin. Aria pulls at his laces, tugging them loose enough to hook her thumbs in against his hipbones. She manages to get them down past his backside before he pulls her hands away, gently guiding her down against the pillows. She lies back, head spinning, and stares at the ceiling while she counts her breaths. There’s a touch at her knee, and when Cullen drapes himself over her the leggings are gone. She can feel him against her hip, warm and smooth almost like silk.

His mouth finds her breasts again and she has to clench her fists in the sheets to keep from coming up off the bed. It feels like she’s burning alive, flames lapping at her insides from deep in her belly. It leaves her writhing against him. Her legs shake as she clenches her thighs together for some sort of solace.

“Cullen,” she keens, “touch me, please, oh—“

He moves to sit back on his heels. His hands close around her kneecaps and gently, slowly, he pries her legs apart. She meets his gaze and wonders what she must look like. Flushed from her cheeks to her collarbone, no doubt, lips slack and eyes heavy, pupils blown. Cullen leans down to press a kiss to her temple. She can feel his hand slinking down the length of her torso, across the thin skin over her hipbones, and finally between of her thighs.

Two fingers slide up the length of her, and Cullen swoops down to swallow her whimper. She’s _aching_. She knows how wet she must be; had been since he’d kissed her on his desk and it feels like an eternity since then. Cullen’s thumb slides up to press at the pearl of her sex. Aria moans against his tongue, and he uses the distraction to carefully sink one finger into her. Her legs close in at his sides, taught against his ribcage.

“Is this all right?” Cullen murmurs at her ear. She nods, gasping. It’s wonderful, more than all right, but it’s not enough and if he stays still for much longer she’s likely to burst into flames.

“More,” Aria whispers and Cullen nods, kissing at the tip of one tapered ear. Another finger joins the first and he pulls them out, then in again, the heel of his palm grinding against her with each stroke. Aria’s eyelids flutter closed and her head falls back to the pillows. Her hips struggle to keep up with him, tilting up until his fingertips drag over something insider her that leaves her gasping, spine arcing up off the sheets. She’s trembling all over, wound tight like a spring.

Cullen soothes her with kisses across her damp forehead. “Tell me what you need.” His breath across her ear sends a shiver down her spine. “Tell me what you need, Aria, anything, you only have to name it.”

“You,” she breathes, and it’s all she has to say.

He gathers her in his arms, one hand under her back and the other cupped under her jaw. Her eyes open to meet his, and the adoration, the pure tenderness she finds there floors her.

“I’ll try to be careful,” he tells her, and she nods, trusting that he will. “It’s been… a long time since…”

She reaches up, runs her index finger over his mouth. “You won’t hurt me.”

“Maker, you’re _so_ perfect.” He turns his face to kiss her palm, nuzzling into her hand. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

Aria kisses the words from his mouth, pulling him down with her to his pillows. Her ankles hook around the small of his back. Cullen steadies himself on elbows and knees. He kisses her face, her cheeks, her lips, and then his hips meet hers and he slowly slides into her.

Aria had expected it to hurt; knew very well how much it _could_ hurt. She’d been fully prepared to grit her teeth and bear through it until the very end. She hadn’t been prepared for the wave of pure heat he sent rushing under skin, licking at every nerve in her body. The keen it pulled from her was so loud, so drawn out she could scarcely believe it had come from her mouth. Her short nails sink into Cullen’s skin.

She hears a hiss escape his teeth. His eyes are shut tight, brows drawn together as if he were in pain. “Cullen,” she whispers, trying to draw him back to her from wherever he’d slipped to. His head drops to her chest, lips trembling against her skin.

“Oh, you feel so wonderful.”

“Kiss me.”

He does. Cullen pants against her lips in between kisses, and when he makes to pull away from her she clenches her teeth on a moan. He rocks forward again and her back bows to meet him. Again, and again, they come together, and Aria holds him close as he starts to make love to her.

It is slow, and so gentle and sweet. Cullen’s lips kiss wherever he can reach: her mouth, her cheeks, her shoulders, wrists, and elbows. Once, his little finger trails down the crease of her thigh, light enough to tickle, and it makes Aria giggle so embarrassingly loud. He laughs into her neck, and it does little to deter the onslaught of his hips.

Eventually, he hooks his arm under one of her knees, pulling her leg up at an angle and the resulting change in elevation tears a choked scream out of her. She unknowingly rakes her nails down his back, leaving angry red marks in her wake. Cullen stills for a moment, groaning low against her skin. His chest heaves against her breasts.

“What’s the matter?” she asks him. _Why did you stop_?

“I… need just a second.” Sweat beads at his brow. “I know I said this earlier, but it really has been a while.” Since he’s stopped, Cullen’s hand lowers to trail fingers around the apex of her sex. It distracts her for the moment, and he relishes her breathy little whimpers as she writhes underneath him. “Can we try something?”

“Wh-what?”

“Would you like to switch places?”

“Um.” It’s very, very hard to think. Aria licks at her dry lips. “Okay. Sure.”

Cullen pulls her into his arms and, never moving from inside her, carefully flips them so that he is lying against the pillows and she sits astride him.

“ _Oh_ ,” Aria breathes. Her eyes slide closed as she settles. The aid of gravity seats him deeper than before. Every hair on her body stands on end. Her head falls back and she takes one, two deep breaths.

“Good?” he asks.

“Yes.” He thrusts into her and she gasps, nearly toppling over him. She plants her hands over his chest and it takes a remarkable amount of strength to stay upright. “Ah, _Cullen_ —“

She can’t help but moan at every other thrust, even through her teeth digging into her lip. It’s so, so incredibly _good_. One of Cullen’s hands slides up her skin, resting just under her sternum and holding her there as they move. The other finds her breast and a thumb circles her nipple.

She’s so tightly strung it feels like she’s about to break into pieces. The heat keeps building behind her spine like a tide beating against the sand. It surges forward, reaching just short of the edge and then it ebbs back again. She feels like she’s been chasing that edge for a lifetime and at this point she isn’t sure how much longer it can last.

“Cullen, please,” she whimpers, and he scrambles to sit up. His skin is hot and sticky where it touches hers and she loves it, clutches him to her with her arms wound around his neck. “I need—“

“Yes,” he murmurs against her lips. His fingers find her center again, and she can’t stop the jerk of her hips into his hand. It’s too much, far too much after so long and now she’s starting to slip. Her toes curl into the sheets, her whole body ready to snap in two. “Yes, Aria, come on—“

And she _shatters_.

“ _Oh!_ ”

It’s like a lightning strike. She all but loses control of herself, the way her spine curves and her muscles tremor in waves. Her body shudders around him as he moves inside of her. It feels like she’s slowly catching fire, burning brighter with each ripple of pleasure. Aria clings to Cullen because that’s all she can do, shoulders bent low, panting her moans into his mouth. And he brings her through it, fingers pulling shivers from her as she comes apart in his hands.

As the roar of blood in her ears fades away, Aria finds her muscles and bones unwilling to cooperate. She would have fallen if Cullen hadn’t been there to catch her. His hips haven’t stopped, and she mewls next to his ear because even though she’s completely wrung out it still feels so remarkably good. His thrusts are losing rhythm though, and she can tell by the flex of his jaw that he’s starting to reach the end of his rope.

“I can’t—“ he gasps, fingers digging into her hips, “I’m not going to last—“

She kisses him, pulling the words from his tongue before he can finish saying them. He makes a desperate sound and she takes advantage of his open mouth to bite down, sinking her teeth into his bottom lip.

It does him in.

Frantically, he pulls her off of him. She yelps in surprise, not pain, but her shock is short lived when she sees him take himself in hand. He strokes himself once, twice, and a groan forces its way between his clenched teeth. She watches, captivated, as the muscles of his abdomen shudder and he spends himself in his hand.

For several long moments, they just sit there. Aria’s heart starts to slow its thundering in her chest. Carefully, limbs still trembling, she leans forward and presses a soft kiss to the scar on Cullen’s mouth. He chases her lips as she pulls away. She smiles and moves to unseat herself from his lap. He steadies her with a hand between her shoulder blades, waiting until she’s resting comfortably among his pillows to stand up from the bed.

Boneless. That is what she feels. Boneless and sweaty and very, very warm. There is a dull, fond ache emanating from between her legs and up into the base of her spine and she can already feel the stiffness settling in her joints, but it is the most comfortable she’s felt in a long time, stretched out and sex-sleepy in Cullen’s bed.

He comes back with clean hands, the mattress dipping as he slides next to her. Aria rolls lazily to face him and he pulls her into his arms. They slip under the quilts together and she slides a pale leg in between his.

“Are you all right?” he whispers. For some reason they are both hard pressed to disrupt the easy quiet that’s fallen over the room. “I didn’t hurt you?”

She smiles, shakes her head. “No.”

He skates a finger over her back, down into the dip of her spine. She hums against his lips, content.

“Sometimes I can hardly believe you’re real.”

“I am, Cullen.”

“Yes, but.” His eyes lower to her mouth. “My life hasn’t been kind. To me, or to those around me. But you. You’re…” He sighs. “You’re more than I could ever have hoped for.”

“As you are to me.”

Aria takes his hand and brings it to her lips. There, she lays a single kiss on each knuckle and once she’s done she does the same to its twin. Cullen watches her, enraptured. When she’s done, he drapes an arm over her hip and she snuggles in close under his chin, a long pointed ear just over his heart. His fingers play with the damp hair at the nape of her neck. Soon she can hear his breathing lengthen, evening out as he drifts to sleep.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” she whispers to him, even though he’s likely too close to the fade to hear her. “ _Ar lath ma, vhenan_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com)!


	32. A Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry this one's so short. Between school and work, both of which are very good at sucking the life out of me, I've hardly had anytime write. This chapter took an unbelievably long time to write.
> 
> Leave your thoughts in the comments!
> 
> Also, if you were interested, I'm writing a modern AU Solas romance! You can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4955638/chapters/11378977) if you want. Aria makes an appearance!

The sun is only just beginning to peek out over the horizon when Aria wakes.

The loft is quiet in the grey light of dawn. Cullen still sleeps at her side, holding her close so that she lies tucked in under his chin. His face is buried in her hair, lips warm at her forehead. His breathing is steady and slow where it ghosts over her ear. She smiles to herself, basking in the overwhelming sweetness of it. She places a kiss under his jaw before carefully beginning to untangle herself from the knot of limbs and blankets they’d fallen into during the night. Cullen gives a sleepy, unamused huff at the disturbance. With the space where Aria had lain empty, he rolls over onto his belly and tucks his arms under the pillow. His hair, normally styled and under control, has curled during the night and Aria can’t help herself from running her fingers through it. She bites her lip on a giggle when he sighs at her touch and she moves away, resigned to stop bothering him and let him sleep.

Her clothes still sit where she’d left them on the chair. She dresses quickly to avoid the early morning chill that had settled into her skin as soon as she’d left the comfort of Cullen’s bed. There’s a stiffness in her joints and an ache to her back that definitely hadn’t been there the day before. Her hair must be a mess, she thinks, and she could probably use another bath. Her skin feels tight under the dried sweat, and there’s a lingering dampness between her legs. A flash of heat flares low in her belly as she remembers the night before. A blush sweeps over her cheeks and throats and she grins behind her hand as she dresses.

She’s starting to do up the catches of her shirt when she first hears it. A quiet, breathy whimper from behind her, so soft she almost misses it. Another follows it, louder and more desperate. Aria turns around to the bed. Cullen’s face is contorted in fear, teeth bared in a grimace. One of his hands claws at the sheets while the other is gripped into a tight fist over his chest. A sinking feeling pulls her heart into her stomach and she quickly moves to sit next to him.

“No,” he cries, eyes darting underneath their lids. “No, leave me!”

She’s completely at a loss. Nightmares are tricky things, and she’s not sure if she should try to wake him. Jostling him might cause him panic, and one or both of them could end up hurt, but it pains her to see him so distressed. Her dilemma is cut short when his eyes fly open. Cullen’s chest heaves as he gasps, gaze jumping around the room, and when it lands on Aria he reaches out for her. His hand closes around her wrist, grip tight but not enough to hurt. She holds it close, fingers brushing over his knuckles as she waits for him to calm down.

“Bad dream?” she murmurs. Cullen nods.

“They always are. It’s worse now, without the lyrium.” He sits up against the pillows. His hand reaches out to cup the side of her face. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Her fingers toy with the hair curling at his temple. “I get them too. I know.”

The tension from before dissipates. Cullen smiles at her, strokes his thumb over her cheekbone. Aria leans into the touch.

“You are…”

She looks up from underneath the fan of her lashes. He gazes back, eyes roaming over her face. There’s a nearly tangible warmth there, an overwhelming tenderness and it’s all for her. _Love_ , she realizes and suddenly her chest feels very tight. He’s at a loss for words, unable to complete his thought. Cullen shakes his head. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. In my life.”

Aria takes his hand in hers, kisses the bridge of his fingers. The warmth from her lips seeps into his cold skin. “ _Ar lath ma, vhenan_ ,” she tells him, this time so that she knows he hears.

“You said that,” he murmurs. “Last night. I must have been only half awake, but I remember. What does it mean?”

She blushes. “ _Ma vhenan_.” She slowly guides his hand down so that it lies over her breastbone, the steady thrum of her blood just underneath. “My heart.” She leans forward until her forehead touches his. “ _Ar lath ma_. I love you.”

She hears the stutter in his breath. The fingers over her heart twitch against her soft cotton chemise. “I love you too,” Cullen sighs, and she kisses him as soon as the words leave his mouth. He pulls it away to murmur it against her chin, “I love you,” and drags his lips lower to say it again under her jaw, “ _I love you_.”

Aria sighs, eyelids fluttering closed. Her head falls back and she’s utterly lost in the kisses he’s paying to her neck. Fingers play at the catches of her shirt, only half of them done, and she has half a mind to let them continue but she suddenly remembers why she’d woken up to dress so early in the first place.

“Cullen,” she breathes, and he gives an affirmative noise in answer somewhere down near the hollow of her throat. “I can’t, ah, I have to go.”

His lips leave her skin and she bites her lip at the loss. Of all nights to spend with Cullen, she had to choose the one before an early morning meeting with Josephine and two of Ambassador Briala’s delegates. Cullen smiles at her, sheepishly recatching the clasp in her shirt he’d undone. “I won’t keep you.”

She kisses him again, quickly, and bends over to pull on her boots. Fully dressed, she makes for the ladder to descend from the loft. “Would you like to come to my quarters tonight?” she asks. “We could have dinner and… play chess.”

He laughs at that. “Of course. I’d love to.”

She gives him one last foolish, love struck grin and then quickly climbs down to hurry back into the castle.

When she swings open the door to the rotunda, she nearly jumps out of her skin to find Solas sitting at the table in the middle with a book in his lap. Their eyes meet in the eerie blue glow of the veilfire lamp. She practically feels his stare as he takes in her wrinkled clothes and mussed up hair and she can tell that he _knows_. He knows exactly where she’s come from, and he knows exactly where she’d been the night before. His brows rise by a fraction.

“Good morning, Inquisitor.”

Fate _would_ have it that Solas picked that morning, out of all mornings, to rise so uncharacteristically early and seat himself in the perfect place to greet her as she tried to sneak her way back to her quarters.

“Good morning,” she says quickly, and if her words come out more like a squeak she pretends not to notice.

She also pretends not to notice the soft laugh that follows her as she practically runs out to the great hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com)!


	33. A Palm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! It's been such a long time since I've updated but I've got lots of chapters planned for the next few months! The way an elven inquisitor addresses Solas's feelings on the Dalish never quite sat right with me, so I wanted to explore on that a little further.
> 
> Thanks for sticking around with me and feel free to leave a comment! I love to hear your feedback!

The sound of her boots against the stone bounces off the castle walls, loud in her ears. It is well past sundown. The great hall’s usual occupants have retired for the night, so the only voices that accompany Aria are those echoing through her head.

_“You are_ not _my people.”_

_Her jaw drops. Abelas’s eyes bore into hers. The contempt she finds there knocks the wind out of her._

_A shadow. He’d called her a shadow. Mocked her for the vallaslin on her face, so very like his own. This elf she has never met before. “We…” She has to fight for breath over the rising wave of anger climbing up the back of her throat. “We’ve respected this temple as best we could. We performed the rituals. It was not our intent to defile it.”_

_A shadow. Not my people._

“Walk with me.”

Her tone is measured and calm but it is not a question.

Solas had heard her coming. She can tell. Aria wonders if he can recognize her footsteps or the rhythm of her gait. He places a ribbon between the pages of a great tome, closes it shut on his desk. She squares her shoulders, draws herself to her full height. He stands to face her.

“Of course, Inquisitor.”

_“Your people yet linger.”_

_“Elvhen such as you?”_

_“Yes.” Solas nods sagely. “Elvhen such as I.”_

_Aria whips around to face him. “Elvhen such as you?” she breathes. Her eyes burn with the beginnings of shocked tears. “What is meant by Elvhen such as you?”_

_Solas simply looks at her, stoic in the face of her emotion. She glares at him. She wonders if he can see the hurt on her face. She wonders if he would care._

They walk in silence. Aria forges a couple of paces ahead while Solas follows at her back. They end up out on the battlements. On any other night the view of the snow covered valleys below them would be captivating, but not now.

“You should not have drunk from the well.” His voice is so sure, so wise and she hates him for it.

“You never answered my question.”

“You are not capable of understanding what power you’ve given yourself over to.”

“I think I understand enough.” She fumes. How dare he, this man, this elf with no clan and no alienage to call his own, presume to lecture her on her own gods? On the power of Mythal, the all-mother whose ink she has etched into her face? What right has he to chastise her?

“You belong to _her_ now,” he tells her.

“I have belonged to Mythal far longer than I have known you, Solas. I’ve prayed to her since I was old enough to speak. My _vallaslin_ is her likeness. I’ve looked to her for guidance my entire life, she has not led me astray in the past and she will not do it now.”

“How can you be so naïve?” He almost hisses the words. “It is easy to lose oneself in the face of ceremony and the politics, but at moments like this, Inquisitor, it is plain to see that under the pomp and grandeur you are indeed little more than a _child_.”

“I am a child, I am Mythal’s vessel, I am the Inquisitor, but I am not Elvhen am I, Solas?” He closes his mouth. “Not like you, right? _Elven such as you_.” Aria crosses her arms. “You still have not answered my question.”

Solas folds his hands behind his back. The sharp angles of his face cut a striking silhouette against the night air. “In their clumsy means to fit the fit together the pieces of a history long lost, there is much the Dalish don’t know, that _you_ don’t know.”

“But you do?”

“I have seen, in the Fade—“

“Ah yes, you’ve seen it in the Fade! How could I forget! Tell me, Solas, what have you seen in the Fade? What is the secret to being well and truly Elvhen? Because I had always thought it was the pointed ears, or maybe the thousand years of slavery and oppression, perhaps being called a knife-ear and spat on in the street. If that is not right then it seems for centuries millions of men and women have been doing it all wrong. So tell me, what is the secret?”

“It is not that _simple_.”

“Then simplify it for me!” she cries. “I’ve spent my entire life studying our people, every scrap of magic and language and culture my ancestors have spent _lifetimes_ scouring Thedas for, dedicated all that I am to preserving what little way of life we have left to pass on to my clan, but you mean to call me a child. So explain it to me as you would a child.”

“What you and your ancestors have preserved is inaccurate. From the language you speak to the gods you worship, all has been distorted through time and history. You are so steeped in your misinterpretations you would not recognize the truth for what it is.”

Aria huffs. “Tell me then. Bestow upon me a secret truth the Dalish were too foolish to get right.”

“ _Vallaslin_ are slave markings.”

It takes a second to sink in. Her hand reflexively flies to her forehead, fingers tracing the branches of Mythal’s tree. She shakes her head. “You’re lying.”

Solas shakes his head. “I’ve seen it.”

“ _Vallaslin_ honors our gods. It is a rite of passage.”

“Not a rite, but a brand. Elvhen nobles would mark their slaves in the service of the gods they worshipped.” He turns his head, unwilling to look her in the eye. “The one thing the Dalish had right were the brands for each god.”

Aria bites down on her bottom lip, hard. She can feel tears behind her eyes threatening to spill over. “You’re wrong.”

“I did not tell you this to hurt you. You wanted the truth and I have given it to you.”

“And how is it _you_ came to know the truth? What makes you so damned special?”

“Spirits in the Fade—“

“The Dalish know of spirits!”

“The Dalish are ignorant!”

“No, Solas, _you_ are ignorant!” Aria’s voice turns shrill. “You spend your life dreaming through the fade with your spirits, walking through memories of Arlathan a millennia past, learning what it means to be truly Elvhen and leaving the rest of us in the dust. Arlathan is gone, and the ancient elves have gone with it! Our people have _suffered_! They still do! And you can’t even see it! All you see is what we’ve lost and how far we’ve fallen. You won’t open your eyes to those of us who are trying to survive in the rubble!”

He suddenly takes a step closer. For a second Aria panics. She moves back defensively. “All I see are children playing at a way of life they’ve lost all connection to.”

“Who do you think you are, Solas?” she shrieks. “Who are you to tell us we are misguided? What else did your spirits show you in the Fade that they didn’t show the rest of us?”

“They have shown me enough!”

“Did they show you the slaves bought and sold at auction? The slaughter of women and children at Halemshiral? Every elf raped and murdered by a _shem’len_? Or did you only get to see those pretty crystal towers in the sky that crumbled centuries ago?” She jabs a finger into his chest. “How dare you call me a child! I _wish_ I’d had the chance to be a child! Any childhood I had was stolen! A group of _shem_ bandits killed my mother with me but a babe in her arms! A _shem_ templar raped me when I was a little girl! _Shems_ nearly wiped out my entire clan in Wycome! And you would blame the Dalish for all we’ve lost when humans have made certain we will never be what we once were!”

“And yet you have invited one into your bed.”

Her hand moves before her brain can process it.

Aria slaps him. Hard. Solas’s head snaps to the side, dazed. She slaps him again, the resounding _crack_ ringing through the cold night air. His hand flies to his cheek. She steps away before she can hit him again, this time her hand balled into a fist. A mixture of saliva and blood drips from his lips and onto his woolen tunic.

“Aria—“ he calls out, but she already has her back to him. If he calls her name again she does not hear it. All other noise is drowned out by the sound of her blood roaring in her ears.

An hour later she finds herself in the herb garden, shoes off and feet buried in the soft soil. Her nose drips and the shiny remnants of tears glisten on her face but for the moment she thinks she is done crying. The eerie glow of the embrium plants casts a crimson light over her.

She thinks she hears someone calling to her, and so she scrubs her face on her sleeve, not caring a whit about her etiquette classes or how red her nose will be. She turns around to see one of Leliana’s scouts jogging towards her. Jim, she thinks his name is.

“Inquisitor,” he says, “Spymaster Leliana sent me to find you. She asks that you meet her in the rookery right away, says it’s very urgent.”

Aria nods sullenly. “Thank you, Jim,” she murmurs, and the boy gives her a brief salute before leaving her to the garden.

Not even bothering to put her boots back on, Aria gathers them and makes her way barefoot to the rookery, avoiding the rotunda. At the top of the stairs, she listens to the soft caws of greetings the ravens greet her with. She likes to think they recognize her now after so many months of bringing them scraps after dinner.

“Inquisitor.” Leliana noiselessly moves to her side and with one look at her face Aria knows this is not good news.

“You wanted to see me,” she says softly.

“Yes.” Leliana has a rolled-up parchment in her hand, the wax that once sealed it shut it shut cracked like dried blood. “We’ve found him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com)!


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